New drug to treat stuttering

Ken Steinhardt has stuttered since he was four years old. For years he didn’t want anyone to know about his problem.

He tried speech therapy as a child then over a year ago, Ken enrolled in a clinical trial conducted by doctor Gerald Maguire, one of the world's leading experts on stuttering.

“It is not a behavior that is learned. It is actually a disorder of the brain and the disconnection between the brain signals to the speech areas,” says Dr Maguire of the University of California, Irvine.

Maguire a stutterer himself believes that too much of a chemical called dopamine is released in the brain resulting in the condition.

And Ken is among those taking the clinical trial taking an anxiety drug called pagaclone to control it.

Says Dr Maguire,” We found that the medication was effective in reducing stuttering in over half the patients.”

Ken in his part says, “I kind of felt like a child seeing something for the first time or learning some for the first time. I had never been a fluent person and that was life changing.”

Ken still stutters a little but his condition has improved significantly

Source: yahooindia

Informative post Saira.