Abstract
In aphasia, variability in lesion location and post-stroke network reorganization complicates efforts to identify the regions that support semantic versus phonological processing. In prior work, researchers have often examined these domains in separate patient cohorts, further limiting direct comparison of their neural substrates within aphasia. To address this gap, we investigated the degree of overlap and specialization within semantic and phonological networks in adults with and without aphasia and examined how neural activity relates to task performance and lesion profiles. Sixteen neurologically healthy adults and 15 participants with aphasia following left hemisphere stroke completed adaptive Semantic Matching and Rhyme Judgment tasks during functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recording. Changes in oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin were measured within regions of interest, and activation was related to standardized task performance and damage to left ventral and dorsal language pathways in participants with aphasia. Controls showed largely distinct activation patterns consistent with prior fMRI findings: Semantic Matching preferentially recruited ventral stream regions, particularly left temporal cortex, whereas Rhyme Judgment more strongly recruited dorsal regions, including left inferior frontal and inferior parietal cortex. Participants with aphasia showed greater inter-individual variability and no clear group-level segregation of dorsal and ventral activity. Better Semantic Matching performance was associated with less left ventral stream damage and greater left dorsal activation, whereas better Rhyme Judgment performance was associated with lower right hemisphere ventral and dorsal activation. These findings suggest that post-stroke language performance reflects residual specialization, lesion-dependent constraints, and flexible recruitment of surviving tissue. Overall, fNIRS shows promise as an alternative to fMRI for language mapping in post-stroke aphasia, although replication in larger samples with more extensive cortical coverage is warranted.