We investigated the effects of water swallowing, pharyngeal stimulation, and oropharyngeal anesthesia on corticobulbar and craniobulbar projections to human swallowing musculature. Changes in pathway excitability were measured via electromyography from swallowed intraluminal pharyngeal and esophageal electrodes to motor cerebral and trigeminal nerve magnetic stimulation. After both water swallo...

BACKGROUND We report a patient with cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL), who showed injuries of the neural tracts, which was demonstrated by diffusion tensor tractography (DTT). CASE PRESENTATION A 64-year-old male patient and seven age-matched control volunteers were recruited. Since approximately 1.5 years ago, he had felt mil...

Spasmodic dysphonia is a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary spasms in the laryngeal muscles during speech production. Although the clinical symptoms are well characterized, the pathophysiology of this voice disorder is unknown. We describe here, for the first time to our knowledge, disorder-specific brain abnormalities in these patients as determined by a combined approach of di...

Intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring during endoscopic, endonasal approaches to the skull base is both feasible and safe. Numerous reports have recently emerged from the literature evaluating the efficacy of different neuromonitoring tests during endonasal procedures, making them relatively well-studied. The authors report on a comprehensive, multimodality approach to monitoring the fun...

Faucial pillar (FP) stimulation is commonly used in swallowing rehabilitation, yet its physiological basis remains uncertain. We investigated the effects of intraoral FP stimulation on human corticobulbar excitability and swallowing behavior, to explore the possibility of a central mechanism for functional change. In 10 healthy subjects, corticobulbar projections to pharynx were investigated wi...