title: Relationship between Speech Production and Perception in People Who Stutter.
abstract: Speech production difficulties are apparent in people who stutter (PWS). PWS also have difficulties in speech perception compared to controls. It is unclear whether the speech perception difficulties in PWS are independent of, or related to, their speech production difficulties. To investigate this issue, functional MRI data were collected on 13 PWS and 13 controls whilst the participants performed a speech production task and a speech perception task. PWS performed poorer than controls in the perception task and the poorer performance was associated with a functional activity difference in the left anterior insula (part of the speech motor area) compared to controls. PWS also showed a functional activity difference in this and the surrounding area [left inferior frontal cortex (IFC)/anterior insula] in the production task compared to controls. Conjunction analysis showed that the functional activity differences between PWS and controls in the left IFC/anterior insula coincided across the perception and production tasks. Furthermore, Granger Causality Analysis on the resting-state fMRI data of the participants showed that the causal connection from the left IFC/anterior insula to an area in the left primary auditory cortex (Heschl's gyrus) differed significantly between PWS and controls. The strength of this connection correlated significantly with performance in the perception task. These results suggest that speech perception difficulties in PWS are associated with anomalous functional activity in the speech motor area, and the altered functional connectivity from this area to the auditory area plays a role in the speech perception difficulties of PWS.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Chunming
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Yuhang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Lifen
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Guang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China; Center for Collaboration and Innovation in Brain and Learning Sciences, Beijing Normal UniversityBeijing, China.
authors.forename: Guosheng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London London, UK.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Howell
keywords: causal connection; motor area; speech perception; speech production; stuttering