fMRI of developmental stuttering: a pilot study.
The purpose of this investigation was to explore the feasibility of fMRI in the study of developmental stuttering. Speech contrasts (loud versus silent reading) and language contrasts (reading of semantically meaningful text versus nonsense words) of six developmental stutterers and six nonstutterers were compared using a commercial 1 Tesla MR-Scanner (Siemens Expert). Results indicate that mapping cortical function in persons who stutter is indeed feasible, even with a 1TMR-system. Compared to normals the stutterers seemed to employ different and particularly less differentiated auditory and motor feedback strategies in speech. They apparently rely on auditory processing and on cerebellar contribution as much during silent reading as during reading aloud. Moreover, they showed a greater involvement of the right hemisphere in language processing, activating not only the typical language areas on the left but also and with equal magnitude the right side homologues of these areas. In spite of the promising results, at present several practical problems such as possible movement artifacts and possible masking through scanner noise still hamper a more straightforward use of fMRI in the study of developmental stuttering.
Department of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, The Ghent University Hospital, UZ Gent 2P1, De Pintelaan 185, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium. john.vanborsel@rug.ac.be
John
J
Van Borsel
Eric
E
Achten
Patrick
P
Santens
Philippe
P
Lahorte
Tony
T
Voet
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000098:blood supply; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000098:blood supply; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012660:Semantics; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000098:blood supply; D013342:Stuttering / Q000175:diagnosis*