Lab News
Jürgen Konczak, Director of the HSC Lab, is coauthor of a research article entitled Characterization of Upper Esophageal Sphincter Pressures Relative to Vocal Acoustics that appears in the Journal of Applied Physiology. The first author is Dr. Jesse Hoffmeister, assistant professor in the Department of Otolarnygology. The paper presents a novel measure, the pressure in the upper airways during phonation, as a potential variable to assess voice disruption in people with laryngeal dystonia.
Jürgen Konczak presented a summary of the lab's research activities on using vibro-tactile stimulation as a non-invasive neuromodulation method to treat focal dystonia of the neck and larynx to the University of Minnesota Center on Neuroengineering.
Shima Amini, a master student in the HSC lab, gave her first verbal presentation at a scientific meeting, the Fall Symposium of the Center for Applied and Translational Sensory Science. She spoke about an ongoing clinical trial that investigates the usability of a wearable vibration device to treat the voice symptoms of people with laryngeal dystonia. Her preliminary analysis showed that wearing the device reduced voice symptoms in approximately 65% of participants.
Jürgen Konczak, Director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Laboratory, presented to the International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics on the use of robotic devices to assess proprioceptive function in clinical populations, such as people with stroke or spinal cord injury. Together with colleagues from Italy and Denmark he organized a workshop on Robot-aided Somatosensory-based Approaches for the Neurorehabilitation of Sensorimotor Function.
Chronic cough is one of the most common reasons for patients to seek medical care. In up to 18% of the global adult population, cough persists for longer than 8 weeks. Together with Dr. Stephanie Misono and colleagues in otolaryngology at the University of Minnesota, we investigated if vibro-tactile stimulation of the larynx can reduce symptoms in people with chronic cough using a vibration collar developed in the lab. Results show that a 2-week daily use yielded a meaningful improvement in cough-related quality of life. They were published in the journal Laryngoscope.