FUNCTIONAL-ORGANIZATION OF THE AUDITORY-CORTEX IS DIFFERENT IN STUTTERERS AND FLUENT SPEAKERS

IMPAIRED auditory feedback has been suggested to cause stuttering, and subtle irregularities of audition have been reported in behavioural s tudies. To characterize processing at the auditory cortical level, we recorded neuromagnetic responses to monaural tones in nine stutterers and 10 fluent speakers while the subjects were reading silently, with mouth movements only, aloud, and in chorus with another person. The ba sic functional organization of the auditory cortices was found to be d ifferent in stutterers and controls. The altered interhemispheric bala nce in stutterers was affected by speech production, due to changes in the left auditory cortical representation, and more severely by self- paced than accompanied speech. This may lead to transient nonoptimal i nterpretation of the auditory input and affect speech fluency. Neuro R eport 9: 2225-2229 (C) 1998 Rapid Science Ltd.