CONFERENCE REPORTER
On the STARS (Stuttering Remedy and Analysis Society) Inaugural Schooling and Analysis Convention, Shahriar SheikhBahaei, PhD, assistant professor of neurobiology and habits at SUNY Stony Brook College, described how animal fashions are reworking analysis into the dysfunction and opening pathways towards potential new remedies.1
“In my lab we’re utilizing animal mannequin to check stuttering on the mobile and circuit stage,” SheikhBahaei instructed Psychiatric Instances in an unique interview. Whereas speech itself is uniquely human, he emphasised that “due to this current of identical related habits, related circuits within the mind between human and an animal mannequin…utilizing these animal fashions may assist us perceive this dysfunction on the mobile and circuit stage.”
His group’s work has already recognized disruptions in breathing-related processes. “Our knowledge, for instance, supplied proof that respiratory habits is disorganized in our animal mannequin,” he defined. Researchers within the lab have developed strategies “to make the respiratory system operate in a extra organized approach with the opposite circuits,” he stated. “All these therapy, present promising outcomes each in animals and people as effectively,” SheikhBahaei stated.
Past testing therapies, animal fashions permit unprecedented entry to neural exercise. “We will visualize cells like astrocytes which might be electrically silent. And with the present imaging system it’s unimaginable to have a look at their operate on-line and the way they modulate the exercise of neuronal circuit,” he famous. The animal mannequin method offers “a window to have a look at the operate on the mobile stage, circuit stage, and behavioral stage.”
SheikhBahaei’s dedication to the sphere can also be private. “As an individual who stutters, talking is all the time a difficult job for me,” he shared. “Each profession choice that I made was primarily based on this aim to know extra concerning the dysfunction and likewise analysis to discovering a therapy or a approach that we may also help individuals who stutter.”
Early work satisfied him of the crucial want for higher fashions. He acknowledged “animal fashions had been missing on this area, and we’d want novel animal fashions with human high quality vocal repertoire that would assist us perceive this dysfunction on the mobile and circuit stage,” he stated.
At the moment, he sees progress. “With availability of animal mannequin and synthetic intelligence and large knowledge, we’re in a robust place to know extra about this dysfunction on the elementary stage and generate remedies for this situation.”
Reference
1. SheikhBahaei S. A Neurobiologic Understanding of Stuttering. Offered at STARS Inaugural Schooling and Analysis Convention; Dana Level, California; September 13, 2025.