Article of Note
as possible , looking for changing patterns in brain scans .
It ’ s no easy feat to convince such young children to hold still in a giant , thumping , brainimaging machine . The team has embellished the scanner with decorations that hide all the scary parts . (“ It looks like an ocean adventure ,” Chang says .) In kids who lose their stutter , Chang ’ s team has observed that the connections between areas involved in hearing and ones involved in speech movements get stronger over time . But that doesn ’ t happen in children who continue to stutter .
In another study , Chang ’ s group looked at how the different parts of the brain work simultaneously , or don ’ t , using blood flow as a proxy for activity . They found a link between stuttering and a brain circuit called the default mode network , which has roles in ruminating over one ’ s past or future activities , as well as daydreaming . In children who stutter , the default mode network seems to insert itself — like a third person butting in on a romantic date — into the conversation between networks responsible for focusing attention and creating movements . That could also slow speech production , she says .
These changes to brain development or structure might be rooted in a person ’ s genes , but an understanding of this part of the problem has also taken time to mature .
All in the family
In early 2001 , geneticist Dennis Drayna received a surprising email : “ I am from Cameroon , West Africa . My father was a chief . He had three wives and I have 21 full and half siblings . Almost all of us stutter ,” Drayna recalls it saying . “ Do you suppose there could be something genetic in my family ?”
Drayna , who worked at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders , already had a longstanding interest in the inheritance of stuttering . His uncle and elder brother stuttered , and his twin sons did so as children . But he was reluctant to make a transatlantic journey based on an email , and wary that his clinical skills weren ’ t up to analyzing the family ’ s symptoms . He mentioned the email to current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins ( director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at that time ), who encouraged him to check it out , so he booked a ticket to Africa . He has also traveled to Pakistan , where intermarriage of cousins can reveal gene variants linked to genetic disorders in their children .
Even with those families , finding the genes was slow going : Stuttering isn ’ t inherited in simple patterns like blood types
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