{"id":3912,"date":"2012-03-19T07:49:20","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T15:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.everhear.com\/?p=2794"},"modified":"2012-03-19T07:49:20","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T15:49:20","slug":"stuttering-in-scientific-american","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/stuttering-in-scientific-american\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuttering in Scientific American"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tIn the latest issue of Scientific American<\/a> they discussed in a feature article\u00a0research\u00a0that showed physical changes in brain wiring for those who stutter<\/a>, affecting more than just speech.<\/p>\n

If you saw the movie\u00a0The King\u2019s Speech<\/em>. there was a\u00a0pivotal\u00a0scene where the future king was\u00a0convinced\u00a0to put on a pair of headphones blaring music, and when he began to speak, his voice was clear and fluent. You may have been wondering “how does that work?” For those who stutter, when the masking noise goes on, this is when the magic happens. Without the ability to hear their own voice, people with this speech impediment no longer stumble over their words.\u00a0This simple trick works because of the unusual way the brain of people who stutter is organized\u2014a neural setup that affects other actions besides speech, according to a new study.<\/p>\n

According to Scientific American; Normal speech requires the brain to control movement of the mouth and vocal chords using the sound of the speaker\u2019s own voice as a guide. This integration of movement and hearing typically happens in the brain\u2019s left hemisphere, in a region of the brain known as the premotor cortex. In those who stutter, however, the process occurs in the right hemisphere\u2014prob\u00adably because of a slight defect on the left side, according to past brain-imaging studies. Singing requires a similar integration of aural input and motor control, but the processing typically occurs in the right hemi\u00adsphere, which may explain why those who stutter can sing as well as anyone else.<\/p>\n

In the new study,\u00a0re\u00adsearchers found that the unusual neural organization underlying a stutter also includes motor tasks completely unrelated to speech.\u00a0According to lead author Martin Sommer, a neuroscientist at the University of G\u00f6ttingen in Germany,the results suggest that the left-hemisphere defect underlying a stutter causes trouble with sensory\u00a0integration\u00a0in general, rather than specifically speech-related problems as was\u00a0historically\u00a0thought. \u201cLike in stroke\u00a0patients, the right side seems to jump in and compensate,\u201d Sommer ex\u00adplains. But that part of the brain did not evolve to handle those tasks, so problems\u2014such as a stutter\u2014can emerge.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the latest issue of Scientific American they discussed in a feature article\u00a0research\u00a0that showed physical changes in brain wiring for those who stutter, affecting more than just speech. If you saw the movie\u00a0The King\u2019s Speech. there was a\u00a0pivotal\u00a0scene where the future king was\u00a0convinced\u00a0to put on a pair of headphones blaring music, and when he began…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Stuttering in Scientific American","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","schema":"","fname":"","lname":"","position":"","credentials":"","placeID":"","no_match":false,"name":"","company":"","review":"","address":"","city":"","state":"","zip":"","lat":"","lng":"","phone1":"","phone2":"","fax":"","mon1":"","mon2":"","tue1":"","tue2":"","wed1":"","wed2":"","thu1":"","thu2":"","fri1":"","fri2":"","sat1":"","sat2":"","sun1":"","sun2":"","hours-note":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22,27],"tags":[798,799,52,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everhear.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}