HELSINKI (Bernama-Xinhua) – Researchers from the University of Turku and Turku University Hospital in Finland, along with an international team, have made a breakthrough in understanding stuttering.
Stuttering, a speech disorder characterised by involuntary repetitions, prolongations, or pauses, can have a profound negative impact on the life of the individual affected.
Previously seen as a psychological issue, stuttering is now recognised as a brain disorder affecting speech regulation, said Xinhua.
In a press release published Tuesday by the University of Turku, neurologist Professor Juho Joutsa explained that while stuttering can result from neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease or stroke, its neurobiological mechanisms were not fully understood until now.
The team’s innovative approach involved studying individuals who developed stuttering after a stroke. Despite strokes affecting different brain areas, they identified a common brain network involved in stuttering.
This network includes key regions like the putamen, amygdala, and claustrum deep within the brain, responsible for motor function, emotion regulation, and information relay between brain networks.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), they scanned the brains of 20 people with developmental stuttering, finding structural changes in the same brain network. The severity of stuttering correlated with the extent of these changes. This discovery suggests that regardless of its cause-developmental or neurological-stuttering arises from the same brain network.
These findings shed light on stuttering features, such as motor difficulties and variability across emotional states. Moreover, they open doors for medical interventions targeting this brain network.
