Learning to speak a new language, or regaining speech, depends more on areas of the brain that process sound and physical sensation than on the parts of the brain that govern motor control, according to new research findings.
The study, by researchers at McGill University and the Yale School of Medicine, has implications for speech-learning theory and for the development of speech processing and recognition technologies.
Until now, learning and remembering the movements of the face and mouth underlying the ability to speak was widely thought to depend on motor regions of the brain. The new findings challenge that assumption, pointing instead to the central role of auditory and somatosensory systems.
“Sensorimotor neuroscience has traditionally focused on frontal motor areas as the principal drivers of movement. This study changes that understanding by showing that human speech learning is extensively sensory in nature,” said David Ostry , Professor of Psychology at McGill University.
The findings could support new approaches to emerging brain-speech technologies that could restore speech after a stroke, for example, by encouraging the integration of sensory processes to improve functionality and ease of use.
To test the role of sensory brain regions in learning and retaining speech movements, researchers altered participants’ speech in real time and fed it back through headphones, inducing speech motor learning.
Next, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive brain stimulation technique, was used to disrupt neural activity in key speech areas of the brain: the auditory cortex, the somatosensory cortex and the motor cortex. Retention was tested 24 hours later.
The researchers hypothesized that if a brain area was critical for acquiring and retaining the ability to speak, disrupting it would impair retention; if it was not, retention would be unaffected.
They found that disrupting activity in the sensory cortex – either auditory or somatosensory – significantly impaired participants’ ability to retain newly learned speech movements, while disrupting the motor cortex did not.
“Our study challenges the assumption that new speech memories are solely reliant on changes in motor areas of the brain. Instead, it underscores the importance of changes in auditory and somatosensory brain areas in shaping how we learn to speak,” said study co-author Nishant Rao, Associate Research Scientist at Yale University.
The study is part of a broader research program examining how plasticity in the brain’s sensory systems supports motor learning and memory retention. It complements recent studies from the group on upper-limb movement, which show that disrupting the sensory cortex impairs learning and retention of new movements.
Future research will map the cortical brain circuits involved in learning and explore sensory interventions for the treatment of movement disorders, particularly stroke rehabilitation.
“ Sensory Basis of Speech Motor Learning and Memory ,” by Nishan Rao, Rosalie Gendron, Timothy Manning and David Ostry, was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The research was funded by the (U.S.) National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Experimental study
People
Sensory Basis of Speech Motor Learning and Memory
24-Apr-2026
The authors declare no competing interest.