An fMRI Study on Recovery from Stuttering

Katrin Neumann, Christian Kell, Harald A. Euler, Alexander Wolff von Gudenberg, Claudia Posenske and Anne-Lise Giraud

Recent fMRI studies indicated in male subjects with persistent developmental stuttering a spontaneous but not very effective compensation mechanism for stuttering in the right-hemispheric homolog of the Broca´s area. A successful fluency shaping therapy revealed more left-sided overactivations adjacent to regions where other authors have described structural abnormalities, indicating a more effective compensation by left-hemispheric networks. Because subjects who had recovered from stuttering might exploit even more effective compensation mechanisms, this study investigates the cerebral activation of such subjects with fMRI. First results indicate increased left-hemispheric activations adjacent to the Broca´s region in subjects who had recovered from stuttering.