The course will focus on speech motor control, i.e. the production of phoneme strings with minimal regard for linguistic content. More specifically, brain mechanisms responsible for commanding the musculature of the vocal tract to produce articulations that lead to an acoustic signal that conveys a desired string of syllables with a desired prosodic contour will be covered. This treatment will include neuroanatomical and neurophysiological descriptions of the primary brain structures involved in speech production, with particular emphasis on the cerebral cortex and its interactions with the cerebellum and basal ganglia using basic control theory concepts to explore the computations performed by these brain regions.

Note that this information may change at any time. Please visit the MyBU Student Portal for the most up-to-date course information.