Our stutter causes us anxiety, so yes, they are definitely linked, but anxiety doesn’t cause stuttering in itself. Anxiety releases cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, causing that fight or flight response in us. This causes a surge of dopamine in that part of the brain, and the end result is disrupted signals in the speech motor subsystems in the brain, mainly the basal ganglia, Brocas Area and Striatum. All of which must be perfectly synchronised for fluent speech to occur. There are a lot of people with anxiety (and other mental health) disorders that do not stutter, so this proves anxiety isn’t the root cause of stuttering. It’s a neurological condition impacting neurotransmitter imbalances in the brain’s speech motor pathways.