2009 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Investigating the neural substrates of articulatory planning in developmental stuttering using low familiarity words

Research Project

Project/Area Number	20800078
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (Start-up)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Rehabilitation science/Welfare engineering
Research Institution	Research Institute, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities
Principal Investigator	CAI Chang Research Institute, National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities, 感覚機能系障害研究部, 流動研究員 (50510591)
Project Period (FY)	2008 – 2009
Keywords	発達性吃音 / 脳・神経 / 医療・福祉 / 言語 / 構音制御 / fMRI / コミュニケーション障害 / リハビリテーション
Research Abstract	The present study found another indirect route through motor/premotor cortex for articulation by Japanese nonword, besides the traditional indirect route through left inferior frontal gyrus (including Broca's area) by low familiarity word or nonword of alphabetic languages. Importantly, developmental stuttering speakers did not activate the Broca's area during articulation regardless of the word familiarity, while activate the motor/premotor area more intensively than non-stuttering subjects. This result imply that the stuttering speakers use another route through motor/premotor cortex to compensate the dysfunction in traditional indirect route through Broca's area during articulation.