Effects of subglottal air pressure on velopharyngeal muscle activity in dogs

Voice-related modulation of mechanosensory detection thresholds in the human larynx

Rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors within the laryngeal mucosa provide the central nervous system with perceptual and proprioceptive afference for a variety of essential yet diverse human functions including voice sound production and airway protection. It is unknown why mechanosensory information that yields a defensive response when an individual breathes may go largely unnoticed when the individual voices. Therefore, a central question is whether there is voice-related modulation of laryngeal mechanosensory detection. Such modulation would be consistent with current models of afferent laryngeal control, and may be important to maintain fluent voice in the presence of potentially distracting sensory input. Therefore, we employed endoscopic assessment of laryngeal mechanosensory detection thresholds in ten healthy adults during tidal breathing and a voice task. We tested the hypothesis that laryngeal mechanosensory detection thresholds would be higher during the voice task. We found that thresholds were significantly higher for all participants during the voice task and that these changes were significantly more modest in women. Our findings suggest that the laryngeal sensorium may modulate mechanosensory afference to attenuate the potentially distracting influence of sensory input during voice. The finding that women maintain a greater sensitivity during the voice task than men (lower thresholds) may have important implications for the higher prevalence of sensorimotor voice disturbances in women. Our results are consistent with the presence of mechanosensory modulation in other motor systems and with observed sensory differences between women and men. Such modulation has important implications for understanding the underlying neural mechanisms of laryngeal control and how these mechanisms may operate in individuals with laryngeal disturbances.

Possible involvement of neurons in locus coeruleus in inhibitory effect on glossopharyngeal expiratory activity in a neonatal rat brainstem-spinal cord preparation in vitro

In this study, we found that a certain motor branch of glossopharyngeal (IX) motor nerves stably exhibits not only inspiratory activity but also expiratory activity with pons removal in neonatal rat brainstem-spinal cord preparations in vitro. Because this finding indicates that IX expiratory activity is masked by an inhibitory mechanism operating in the pons, we sought to determine the candidate neurons that exert an inhibitory effect on IX expiratory activity. IX expiratory activity was observed when only the pons was perfused with noradrenaline (NA) or clonidine (alpha2 adrenergic receptor agonist), but not when NA and yohimbine (alpha2 adrenergic receptor antagonist) were perfused together. IX expiratory activity was also observed following the removal of the dorsal pons but not the ventral pons. The local administration of clonidine into the bilateral locus coeruleus (LC) evoked burst discharges during the expiratory phase in the IX motor rootlet. These results suggest that neurons in the LC that possess an alpha2 adrenergic receptor on the membrane surface exert a tonic inhibitory effect on IX expiratory activity in neonatal rat brainstem-spinal cord preparations.