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Brain Friends

Author: Angie Cauthorn

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 Brain Friends: The Podcast is a survivor-led show about stroke, brain health, aphasia, recovery, and health equity.

Hosted by Angie Cauthorn, a two-time stroke survivor and aphasia advocate, Brain Friends takes complicated medical and research topics and turns them into everyday clarity. The show is for survivors, care partners, families, clinicians, researchers, and anyone trying to understand what life after stroke can really look like.

Brain Friends began with me and my friend and co-host, Dr. D. Seles Gadson, a neuroscientist, speech-language pathologist, and champion for equity in aphasia care. Dr. Seles’s work focused on health disparities, representation, and making science useful for real communities. Her voice still opens and closes every episode, and her legacy remains part of the show’s foundation.

Since launching in June 2022, Brain Friends has reached listeners in more than 100 countries, with conversations that center stroke recovery, aphasia, cognition, communication, prevention, brain health, and the real-life “now what?” after a neurological event.

Regular segments include:

The Breakdown: Clear explanations of stroke, aphasia, brain health, research, and recovery topics.

Smart Cookie: The thoughtful question Angie asks guests about brain health, recovery, equity, or what they wish more people understood.

OTC with the Commish: “On The Clock” style recovery talk, where Angie uses football draft energy to break down the moves, tools, and first-round picks that matter.

The Check-In: Short, honest reflections on life after stroke, recovery, advocacy, and what comes next.

Brain Friends is not here to give medical advice or empty inspiration. It is here to make the science clearer, the recovery road less lonely, and the next step easier to see.

Welcome to Brain Friends.

33 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail A stroke doesn’t always arrive like a movie scene. Sometimes it shows up as a dragging leg, blurry vision, a face that won’t smile straight, or speech or language that suddenly changes. And the scariest part is that you may still feel “fine.” That’s why Angie sits down with Nurse Karrima Owens, clinical nurse specialist and stroke program coordinator at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, known around West Philly as the Stroke Lady. Her message is simple and urgent: you d...
Send us Fan Mail What does it actually mean to recover language after a stroke? Not just pass a test, but tell a story, hold a conversation, explain what happened to you at the airport. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Brielle Stark, a neuroscientist and aphasia researcher at Indiana University Bloomington, to talk about discourse: the kind of language we use every day to describe our lives, our memories, and what matters to us. We dig into why standard aphasia tests miss so much of the r...
Send us Fan Mail Dr. Rachel Forman is a stroke neurologist at Yale School of Medicine. She treats stroke, researches it, and takes that knowledge into communities through Stamp Out Stroke -- sixty-plus events and counting. She recommends this podcast to her patients. In this conversation: blood pressure and why most people do not know they have a problem until something goes wrong. Why only one in five stroke survivors check their blood pressure correctly. The discharge cliff. Secondary strok...
Send us Fan Mail A stroke can feel like a lightning strike on the brain’s power grid—which is why the new 2026 AHA/ASA acute ischemic stroke guidelines focus on speed, clarity, and better systems at every step. We sit down with the chair of the writing group, Dr. Sean Pabakaron, to translate cutting-edge research into actions families, clinicians, and first responders can take right now. No jargon, no fluff—just the signals to watch, the questions to ask, and the processes that save brain. W...
Send us Fan Mail A friendship became a movement when a survivor searching for culturally competent therapy met a clinician who refused to treat equity like an optional add-on. What started as a phone call turned into Brain Friends—a space where lived experience and rigorous science work side by side to make aphasia, stroke recovery, and neuroplasticity feel human, practical, and possible. We walk through the real story: how instant respect turned into a partnership, how roles formed—one voic...
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