Increased dopamine activity associated with stuttering : NeuroReport

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Clinical Neuroscience and Neuropsychology

Increased dopamine activity associated with stuttering

Wu, Joseph C.1,5; Maguire, Gerald1; Riley, Glyndon3; Lee, Angie1; Keator, David1; Tang, Cheuk4; Fallon, James2; Najafi, Ahmad1

Author Information

1Brain Imaging Center, Department of Psychiatry

2Anatomy Department, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697

3California State University, Fullerton, Communicative Disorders Program, Fullerton, CA

4Mt Sinai School of Medicine, PET Laboratory, New York, USA

5Corresponding Author: Joseph C. Wu

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: We are grateful for the support of Dr William E. Bunney and the Brain Imaging Committee and the National Stuttering Project.

Received 12 November 1996; accepted 14 November 1996

NeuroReport 8(3):p 767-770, February 10, 1997.

Abstract

POSITRON emission tomography using 6-FDOPA as a marker of presynaptic dopaminergic activity was used to investigate the role of the dopamine system in stuttering. Three patients with moderate to severe developmental stuttering were compared with six normal controls. Stuttering subjects showed significantly higher 6-FDOPA uptake than normal controls in medial pre-frontal cortex, deep orbital cortex, insular cortex, extended amygdala, auditory cortex and caudate tail. Elevated 6-FDOPA uptake in ventral limbic cortical and subcortical regions is compatible with the hypothesis that stuttering is associated with an overactive pre-synaptic dopamine system in brain regions that modulate verbalization.

© Lippincott-Raven Publishers.

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