Can magnetic pulses to the brain boost speech in aphasia?

Copied word for word from the study's registry entry, so the wording is the study team's rather than ours.

Inclusion Criteria: 1. Patients, age 18-90, who carry a diagnosis of either the logopenic (lvPPA), agrammatic non-fluent (nfvPPA) or semantic (svPPA) variants of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). Patients must have been observed for at least one year by a specialized clinician. 2. Patients must have at least mild to moderate language impairment. 3. Patients must be native English speakers. 4. Patients must have a study partner (e.g. spouse, sibling or adult child) who can accompany them to every study visit. Exclusion Criteria: 1. Any history of seizures, unexplained loss of consciousness or a first-degree family member with epilepsy. 2. Any history of significant co-occurring neurological illness unrelated to neurodegeneration associated with PPA (e.g. multiple sclerosis), or significant medical problems (e.g. poorly controlled diabetes/hypertension or cancer within 5 years). 3. Active symptoms of major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, substance use disorder or significant premorbid intellectual disability according to Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-5) criteria. 4. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) evidence of significant cerebrovascular disease, hydrocephalus or the presence of a space-occupying intra-cranial mass. Contraindications to MRI or repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) including: cardiac pacemaker or pacemaker wires, neurostimulators, implanted pumps, metal in the body (rods, plates, screws, shrapnel, dentures, intrauterine device), surgical aneurysm clips in the head, previous neurosurgery or cochlear implants. 5. In line with published Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines for rTMS, pregnancy must be ruled out by urine ß-Human Chorionic Gonadotropin if answers to screening questions suggest that pregnancy is possible and if female participants are premenopausal and of child-bearing age. Subjects will not be able to enroll if they are breastfeeding.