Neural Correlates and Functional Connectivity Associated With Cognitive Memory Training in Patients With Cerebral Ischemic Lesions

The study will investigate the effects of two cognitive training strategies on behavior, neural correlates and functional connectivity of patients with vascular lesions. The first strategy is associated to the ability to apply efficient organizational semantic category strategy to a list of words. This strategy will be trained in activities similar to everyday life activities. There will be in total 5 sessions, two for measuring the generalization effects before and after training and three sessions to apply the semantic strategy in order to improve encoding and episodic memory performance. The second strategy is related to the ability to remember face-names and the strategy will involve the identification of a salient face feature, creation of a nickname and association of the nickname to the real name. There will be 5 sessions in total, two for measuring the generalization effects before and after training and three sessions to apply the face-name association strategy in order to improve encoding and episodic memory performance. These two cognitive training procedures will be carried out in two separate moments. Before and after each procedure all participants will be examined by functional MRI during resting state and during a active task using a memory encoding paradigm. The same procedure will be carried out with normal control participants.