NIH study in mice identifies type of brain cell involved in stuttering

Discovery could lead to targets for new therapies

A microscope image of brain cells stained in blue.

Researchers believe that stuttering—a potentially lifelong and debilitating speech disorder—stems from problems with the circuits in the brain that control speech, but precisely how and where in the brain these problems occur is unknown. Using a mouse model of stuttering, scientists report that a loss of cells called astrocytes in the brain is associated with stuttering. The mice had been engineered with a human gene mutation previously linked to stuttering. The study, which appeared online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in August, offers insights into the neurological deficits associated with stuttering.

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