In cooperation with U of M otolaryngologist Stephanie Misono, MD, MPH and her team, Jürgen Konczak, PhD, professor in the School of Kinesiology, and director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSCL), and recent HSCL graduates Jiapeng Xu, PhD, Jinseok Oh, PhD, and Arash Mahnan, PhD, published an article entitled “Atypical Activation of Laryngeal Somatosensory-Motor Cortex During Vocalization in People With Unexplained Chronic Cough” in JAMA Otolaryngology. Millions of people suffer from persistent or chronic cough and in about half of these cases the cause of coughing is unknown. Findings of this study revealed that people with unexplained chronic cough exhibit signs of abnormal sensorimotor cortical processing even during simple acts as voicing a vowel. It is the first study to show that chronic cough may alter brain processing in motor acts involving voicing and speech.
