Episode 22: The Neuroscience of Speech Production

So this week’s episode is all about speech production. Speech is a fundamental way of communicating our needs, desires, threats, resources, etc to our conspecifics. But do you know about the circuits and muscles and brain regions responsible for our ability to physically produce speech?

Curious? Come and take a listen!

Please rate, review, and subscribe and if you have any questions, comments, concerns, queries, or complaints, please email me at neuroscienceamateurhour@gmail.com or DM me at NeuroscienceAmateurHour on Instagram.

Citations and relevant papers below:

Birds Raised In Complete Isolation Evolve “Normal” Species Song Over Generations. ScienceDaily. Accessed June 6, 2022. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090503132617.htm

Human language may have evolved to help our ancestors make tools. www.science.org. https://www.science.org/content/article/human-language-may-have-evolved-help-our-ancestors-make-tools

Ludlow CL. Central nervous system control of the laryngeal muscles in humans. Respiratory physiology & neurobiology. 2005;147(2-3):205-222. doi:10.1016/j.resp.2005.04.015

Petko B, Tadi P. Neuroanatomy, Nucleus Ambiguus. PubMed. Published 2022. Accessed June 6, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547744/#:~:text=The%20nucleus%20ambiguus%20is%20the

Guy-Evans O. Motor Cortex Function and Location | Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org. Published September 8, 2021. https://www.simplypsychology.org/motor-cortex.html#:~:text=The%20motor%20cortex%20is%20an

Simonyan K. The Laryngeal Motor Cortex: Its Organization and Connectivity. Current opinion in neurobiology. 2014;0:15-21. doi:10.1016/j.conb.2014.05.006

Kearney E, Guenther FH. Articulating: the neural mechanisms of speech production. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. 2019;34(9):1214-1229. doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1589541

@neurochallenged. Know Your Brain: Broca’s Area. @neurochallenged. https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/know-your-brain-brocas-area

University of California San Francisco. Speech & Language. Memory and Aging Center. Published 2019. https://memory.ucsf.edu/symptoms/speech-language