The Effectiveness of the Bigdeli Mind Simulation Technique on fMRI Activation in the Central/Precentral Gyrus and Temporal Gyrus of an Individual With Stuttering Following Therapeutic Interventions
Keywords:
Mind simulation technique, stuttering, functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, central gyrus, temporal gyrus, neuroimaging, neural activationAbstract
Purpose: The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of the Bigdeli mind simulation technique on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activation in the central/precentral gyrus and temporal gyrus of a child with stuttering following therapeutic intervention.
Methods and Materials: The present research was conducted using an experimental single-case design with a pretest–posttest structure. The participant was a 9-year-old girl with developmental stuttering who was referred to a psychology services center in Tehran, Iran, in 2021 and was selected through convenience sampling. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in two stages, including before treatment and two months after treatment. During imaging, the participant performed a task-based reading paradigm consisting of alternating text presentation and rest intervals. The fMRI data were acquired using a 3-Tesla Siemens Prisma MRI scanner and were analyzed using FSL software and the general linear model. The main regions of interest included the superior central gyrus, posterior central gyrus, and posterior superior temporal gyrus.
Findings: The findings demonstrated increased activation in all examined speech-related regions after treatment. In the posterior superior temporal gyrus, the number of active voxels increased from 403 before treatment to 454 after treatment, and the mean z-score increased from 5.38 to 5.67. In the superior central gyrus, active voxels increased from 1026 to 1232, while the mean z-score increased from 5.91 to 6.04. In the posterior central gyrus, active voxels increased from 1033 to 1127, and the mean z-score increased from 5.96 to 6.25. The reconstructed fMRI images also demonstrated greater post-treatment blood oxygenation activity in the central/precentral motor region and posterior superior temporal gyrus compared with the pre-treatment stage.
Conclusion: The findings suggest that the Bigdeli mind simulation technique was associated with increased neural activation in speech motor and language-processing regions related to speech fluency and auditory–verbal monitoring.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Hamid Kamarzarin; Mojtaba Bigdeli Shamloo, Firoozeh Ghorbani, Aidin Taghiloo (Author)
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