Vocalizations such as mews and cries in cats or crying and laughter in humans are examples of expression of emotions. These vocalizations are generated by the emotional motor system, in which the mesencephalic periaqueductal gray (PAG) plays a central role, as demonstrated by the fact that lesions in the PAG lead to complete mutism in cats, monkeys, as well as in humans. The PAG receives strong...

To determine whether multiple sessions of electrical stimulation (ES) applied to neck muscles improve swallowing function and whether this improvement is accompanied by cortical reorganization in patients with dysphagia, before-after trials were performed on eight subjects. ES was applied for 1 hour, 5 days a week for 2 weeks. Swallowing function significantly improved after 2 weeks of ES, and ...

Human swallowing involves the integration of sensorimotor information with complexities such as taste; however, the interaction between the taste of food and its effects on swallowing control remains unknown. We assessed the effects of pleasant (sweet) and aversive (bitter) tastes on human cortical swallowing motor pathway excitability. Healthy adult male volunteers underwent a transcranial mag...

A dissociation between voluntary and emotional facial innervation is described in a patient with a pure motor stroke due to a unilateral ischaemic pontine infarction. Voluntary facial innervation of the contralateral orbicularis oris muscle was affected whereas emotionally induced innervation of the same muscle was spared. This report provides evidence that fibres conveying voluntary and emotio...

The corneomandibular reflex is present when the touching cornea induces an associated chin movement to the opposite side by contraction of the external pterygoid muscle (Figure). This reflex is seen most commonly in acutely ill patients with coma and elevated intracranial pressure, large cerebral hemispheric lesions with secondary brainstem pressure, intrinsic lesions of the upper brainstem or ...