title: A neurobehavioral approach to dysprosody.
abstract: Much of the recent emphasis on prosody (the melody and rhythm of speech) and its disorders (dysprosody) has been on cognitive-affective functions attributed to cortical areas of the right cerebral hemisphere, with little further behavioral or neuroanatomical specification. This focus is inappropriately narrow both from the perspectives of neuropathogenesis and neurobehavioral phenomenology, and it is based on a limited view of prosody. Current models of brain organization for prosody propose lateralized representation based on functional (affective vs. linguistic) or featural (timing vs. pitch) properties of prosodic material. However, a role for subcortical structures in prosody is being increasingly described, and prosodic functions are now known to span a broad range in communication. In this article we describe normal prosody and present an overview of neurobehavioral disorders associated with acquired adult dysprosody. From these considerations we propose a neurobehavior-based approach to a more effective study of prosodic disturbance, and eventually, to better insight into normal prosody.
authors.affiliation: Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, New York University, New York, New York, USA. js100@nyu.edu
authors.forename: John J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Sidtis
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Van Lancker Sidtis
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D001480:Basal Ganglia Diseases / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception