Regional brain activity change predicts responsiveness to treatment for stuttering in adults

Developmental stuttering is known to be associated with aberrant brain activity, but there is no evidence that this knowledge has benefited stuttering treatment. This study investigated whether brain activity could predict progress during stuttering treatment for 21 dextral adults who stutter (AWS). They received one of two treatment programs that included periodic H₂¹⁵O PET scanning (during oral reading, monologue, and eyes-closed rest conditions). All participants successfully completed an initial treatment phase and then entered a phase designed to transfer treatment gains; 9/21 failed to complete this latter phase. The 12 pass and 9 fail participants were similar on speech and neural system variables before treatment, and similar in speech performance after the initial phase of their treatment. At the end of the initial treatment phase, however, decreased activation within a single region, L. putamen, in all 3 scanning conditions was highly predictive of successful treatment progress.     

Oral approach‐avoidance: A replication and extension for European–Portuguese phonation

Previous research revealed that mouth movements influence attitudes. Covert subvocal articulations inducing muscular contractions resembling ingestion movements were preferred over expectoration‐like movements, unveiling a relationship between vocal muscles' wandering and motivational states such as approach and avoidance. These findings, explained in terms of embodied cognition, suggest that specific movements are directly connected to, and more importantly, automatically activate concordant motivational states. The oral approach‐avoidance effect was replicated using the original stimulus set and a new set of stimulus developed for Portuguese. Results from two high‐powered (total N = 407), independent replications, revealed that the preference for inward words (over outwards) exists in both sets but to a greater extent in the pool phonetically adapted for Portuguese.