Brain imaging and stuttering: some reflections on current and future developments.

This special edition is a tribute to the Editor’s foresight in recognizing that this is an opportune time to review the status of the now burgeoning brain imaging studies on stuttering. His idea was to try to bring together some of the current contributors to that research by inviting papers from laboratories that are currently conducting brain imaging investigations of developmental stuttering. Each contributor was given a very wide mandate as to what to present. The invitation simply requested a manuscript that described current research in their particular laboratory and, if possible, share with the Journal of Fluency Disorders readers the direction of their research. There was no expectation that the authors would present completed research, but preliminary findings were certainly encouraged. It’s quite obvious, therefore, that the contributors more than met the terms of that request. The result is a series of papers that constitute an illuminating overview of the different imaging techniques and strategies that are now being used to investigate stuttering — and the implications of the findings for theory and therapy. They contain a number of themes. Included are accounts of studies designed to understand the neural processes associated with the language of persons who stutter, theoretic accounts of the current array of findings and their relevance to other disorders, studies designed to isolate regional activations and deactivations associated with the fluency-inducing procedures and those associated with treatment.