Answers are emerging rapidly. Researchers are learning how people see, speak, act, hear, and think. They even are watching the minds of performing musicians. Dr. Fox and others have found that people stutter because of a circuit abnormality in the speech motor circuits of the cerebrum and cerebellum. Brain surgery's risks may be reduced because of a test for patients that Dr. Fox helped develop and improve.
New studies are under way to examine brain activity in performing musicians.
Musicians play while undergoing positron- emission tomography, or PET, scans. Results show that Bach requires different brain operations than playing the basic musical scales. The RIC's work blends research and clinical applications and involves Health Science Center faculty members and researchers from the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments, which have shared the center's costs. The disorder is one of the most common chromosomal deletions among children. It causes mental retardation or developmental delay.