Sunday, April 29, 2007

Dysfunctional stop signalling??

In a previous post, I talked about stop and go signal.

I have to clarify my message. It is not an inability to stop movement, but the inability to start because of an inability to produce stop signals that decay properly in-time, which is a different statement. So if people who stutter are at their final syllable, they send a stop signal and that's why they stop. BUT were they to attempt one more syllable, the start signal would take a long time to become dominant due to an abnormally strong and slowly decaying stop signal. This could be due to a weak go signal OR a strong stop signal that stays too long in the system!!We can say a word when the go signal dominates the stop signal. Because of the dual nature of there being a competing go and a stop signal in a motor system, a dysfunctional go signal is not the only suspect.

And a more empirical argument.

Think about the blocks we are having. For me not being able to say a word, feels more like trying to drive with the hand brake on and not like being unable to start the car. I can feel that the syllable is "ready" in my brain, but something is holding back. And then suddenly this resistance vanishes. And on some days there is less resistance...

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