#Parallels 13 activation key drivers#

That allows Guenther and his team to experimentally manipulate various aspects of the system. Hopkin: One set of equations represents the electrical activity of the neurons in all of these regionsвЂ¦another the strength of the connections they form with each other. Guenther: These equations describe neural activity in different parts of the brain including the basal ganglia, cerebellum, and the cerebral cortex. But which of these circuits can lead to a stutter? To find out, Guenther pieced together equations that represent how the neurons that form these circuits interact. Hopkin: The on/off switch initiates the movement. To understand the function of these circuits itвЂ™s useful to consider something like the energizer bunny which has an on/off switch as well as a set of motors and gears that make the bunny walk and play drums when the switch is turned on. Guenther: One is an initiation circuit and the other is an articulation circuit.

#Parallels 13 activation key drivers#

But the key drivers can be broken down into two main circuits. Hopkin: Numerous neural circuits come into play when it comes to generating speech. Guenther: Despite this, and despite being studied at least as far back as the ancient Romans, our understanding of what causes stuttering has been until recent years very poor. ItвЂ™s estimated that about one percent of the worldвЂ™s population stutters. Hopkin: He says that stuttering is very common and it happens in all languages. into movements of the tongue and the other speech articulators that convey these thoughts to another person. Hopkin: Frank Guenther of Boston University.

ДЇrank Guenther: My main research interest is translating how the brain translates thoughts. They presented their findings at the Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America. Now, studying a neurocomputational model of this complex process, researchers have found that stuttering stems from a glitch in the neural circuit that initiates speech. Interruptions anywhere along this articulation pathway can impair the utterance, and create something like a stutter.

Then your brain has to tell your mouth to say it. First you have to think of something to say. Hopkin: When you stop to think about it, itвЂ™s not all that easy to speak. Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific AmericanвЂ™s 60-Second Science.