Singing and Speaking Ability in Parkinson's Disease and Spinocerebellar Ataxia.

Purpose: This study examined spontaneous, spoken-to-a-model, and two sung modes in speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD), speakers with cerebellar disease (CD), and healthy controls. Vocal performance was measured by intelligibility scores and listeners' perceptual ratings.

Method: Participants included speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria secondary to PD, those with ataxic dysarthria secondary to CD, and healthy speakers.

Cerebral Blood Flow Is Not a Direct Surrogate of Behavior: Performance Models Suggest a Role for Functional Meta-Networks.

Background: Functional brain imaging has become the dominant approach to the study of brain-behavior relationships. Unfortunately, the behavior half of the equation has been relegated to second-class status when it is not ignored completely. Different approaches to connectivity, based on temporally correlated physiological events across the brain, have ascended in place of behavior.

Emotional Nuance Enhances Verbatim Retention of Written Materials.

Recent studies have demonstrated that details of verbal material are retained in memory. Further, converging evidence points to a memory-enhancing effect of emotion such that memory for emotional events is stronger than memory for neutral events. Building upon this work, it appears likely that verbatim sentence forms will be remembered better when tinged with emotional nuance.

Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Changes Cortical-Subcortical Blood Flow Patterns During Speech: A Positron Emission Tomography Study.

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is an effective treatment for Parkinson's disease (PD) but can have an adverse effect on speech. In normal speakers and in those with spinocerebellar ataxia, an inverse relationship between regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the left inferior frontal (IFG) region and the right caudate (CAU) is associated with speech rate. This pattern was examined to determine if it was present in PD, and if so, whether it was altered by STN-DBS.

Genotypic Differences in Networks Supporting Regional Predictors of Speech Rate in Spinocerebellar Ataxia: Preliminary Observations.

Disordered speech production, dysarthria, is a common characteristic of the spinocerebellar ataxias (SCAs). Although dysarthric features differ across SCAs, a previous analysis revealed that a combination of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the left inferior frontal region and the right caudate predicted syllable rate, a pattern reported in normal speakers. This study examined the relationships between primary predictor brain regions and other areas of the brain in three SCA groups.