Abstract
BackgroundThe neurophysiological and neuroanatomical foundations of persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) are still a matter of dispute. A main argument is that stutterers show atypical anatomical asymmetries of speech-relevant brain areas, which possibly affect speech fluency. The major aim of this study was to determine whether adults with PDS have anomalous anatomy in cortical speech-language areas.MethodsAdults with PDS (n = 10) and controls (n = 10) matched for age, sex, hand preference, and education were studied using high-resolution MRI scans. Using a new variant of the voxel-based morphometry technique (augmented VBM) the brains of stutterers and non-stutterers were compared with respect to white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) differences.ResultsWe found increased WM volumes in a right-hemispheric network comprising the superior temporal gyrus (including the planum temporale), the inferior frontal gyrus (including the pars triangularis), the precentral gyrus in the vicinity of the face and mouth representation, and the anterior middle frontal gyrus. In addition, we detected a leftward WM asymmetry in the auditory cortex in non-stutterers, while stutterers showed symmetric WM volumes.ConclusionsThese results provide strong evidence that adults with PDS have anomalous anatomy not only in perisylvian speech and language areas but also in prefrontal and sensorimotor areas. Whether this atypical asymmetry of WM is the cause or the consequence of stuttering is still an unanswered question.
Highlights
The neurophysiological and neuroanatomical foundations of persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) are still a matter of dispute
The clusters are located in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) including the planum temporale, the precentral gyrus (PrCG), the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) comprising the pars opercularis (POP), and the middle frontal gyrus (MFD) (Table 1)
There was no significant difference between stutterers and non-stutterers with respect to the grey matter (GM) volumes
Summary
The neurophysiological and neuroanatomical foundations of persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) are still a matter of dispute. Persistent developmental stuttering (PDS) is a relatively severe disturbance characterized by involuntary, audible or silent, repetitions or prolongations of sounds or syllables These are not readily controllable and often are accompanied by other movements and by negative emotions [1,2]. Several authors suppose a hereditary component of PDS because of the relatively high concordance rate in family members of PDS subjects (70% for monozygotic twins, about 30% for dizygotic twins, and 18% for siblings of the same sex) [3,4,5] Because of this hereditary component and the early onset of stuttering it has repeatedly been suggested that some kind of anatomical or neurophysiological predetermination increases the (page number not for citation purposes). Recent neuroimaging studies have shown atypical activation and deactivation of brain regions in adults with PDS [24,30,31,32] the anatomical underpinnings of stuttering have not been examined in detail so far
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