Performance and Function Meet Structure: A White Matter Connection Tuned for Vocal Production

Contemporary imaging techniques have increased the potential for establishing how brain regions interact during spoken language. Some imaging methods report bilateral changes in brain activity during speech, whereas another approach finds that the relationship between individual variability in speech measures and individual variability in brain activity more closely resembles clinical observations. This approach has repeatedly demonstrated that speaking rate for phonological and lexical items can be predicted by an inverse relationship between cerebral blood flow in the left inferior frontal region and the right caudate nucleus. To determine whether morphology contributes to this relationship, we examined ipsilateral and contralateral white matter connections between these structures using diffusion tensor imaging, and we further assessed possible relationships between morphology and selected acoustic measures of participants' vocal productions. The ipsilateral connections between the inferior frontal regions and the caudate nuclei had higher average fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity values than the contralateral connections. Neither contralateral connection between inferior frontal and caudate regions showed a significant advantage on any of the average morphology measures. However, individual differences in white matter morphology were significantly correlated with individual differences in vocal amplitude and frequency stability in the left frontal–right caudate connection. This cortical–striatal connection may be “tuned” for a role in the coordination of cortical and subcortical activity during speech. The structure–function relationship in this cortical-subcortical pathway supports the previous observation of a predictive pattern of cerebral blood flow during speech and may reflect a mechanism that ensures left-hemisphere control of the vocal expression of propositional language.