Cerebral organization of verbal action in stutterers

A comprehensive interdisciplinary study of the cerebral mechanisms of readiness for speech was performed based on a complete neuropsychological examination according to A.R. Luria with qualification and quantification of the detected symptoms and electrophysiological data by an original method of recording and localization of the potentials synchronized with the preparation for speaking. The data on stutterers were compared with those on normal subjects and showed that stuttering is not an isolated (purely peripheral) speech disorder but is a component of a syndrome consisting of specific mnestic, neurodynamic, and motor defects that reflect dysfunction of postfrontal and median structures of the brain (functional blocks I and III according to Luria). Differences between normal and stuttering subjects in the potential related to readiness for speech were associated with the activity of deep median structures (the pons and brainstem), right subcortical nuclei, the right frontal cortex, and the left mediotemporal cortex.Translated from Fiziologiya Cheloveka, Vol. 31, No. 2, 2005, pp. 13–17.Original Russian Text Copyright © 2005 by Vartanov, Glozman, Kiselnikov, Karpova.