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In collaboration with colleagues in the Department of Otolaryngology, the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSC Lab) received the second phase of funding of a $494,136 award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funded project examines laryngeal vibration as a possible treatment for people with unexplained chronic cough, a condition that affects an estimated 5% of all Americans. Because the pathophysiology of chronic cough is not well understood, these patients have very limited treatment options. Our earlier proof-of-concept work could document that a subgroup of people with chronic cough respond to laryngeal vibration and this award seeks to substantiate this finding in a clinical trial. Jürgen Konczak, director of the HSC Lab, serves as Co-PI; Dr. Stephanie Misono from Otolaryngology, who sees patients in her clinic, is the PI of the grant.

Leoni Viola Winter, a long-time member of the laboratory, defended her dissertation entitled The effects of proprioceptive training and dyad practice to improve sensorimotor function. The lab wishes her all the best for her future. Dr. Winter will stay in Minneapolis. She has accepted a postdoctoral researcher position in the Motor Neurophysiology Lab of Dr. Cooper in the Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota. 

 

Jürgen Konczak together with an Italian research group at the Sapienza University of Rome published a paper entitled Muscle theta activity in the pathophysiology of cervical dystonia in the journal Neurobiology of disease. The research was conducted in Rome where the group examined the abnormal muscle of people with cervical dystonia, a disorder characterized by unvoluntary muscle spasms of neck muscles that lead to abnormal head movements and posture. A main finding was that an eleoctrophysiological feature called theta-band intermuscular coherence between specific muscles is increased in patients with cervical dystonia. 

Shima Amini, a member of the HSC Lab successfully defended her master's thesis entitled Usability and Feasibility of In-home Vibro-Tactile Stimulation for Treating Voice Symptoms in Laryngeal Dystonia and submitted her final version to the Graduate School. Shima will continue as a doctoral student in the laboratory.

Jürgen Konczak recently gave a talk at the Dimensions of Motor Control conference that was hosted by the Technische Universität München, a premier institution in Germany. He presented research findings on the transfer of motor on proprioceptive learning that is relevant for understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms of motor skill acquisition and relearning of skills during rehabilitation. At the conference he connected with former lab member Carmen Krewer, who leads a neurorehabilitation research group at a large rehabilitation hospital outside of Munich. 

 

Jürgen Konczak, Director of the Human Sensorimotor Control Lab, presented a lecture on the neuromotor control processes of the cerebellum to a large lay audience at an auditorium of the University of Essen in Germany. The lecture was part of a symposium organized by Dr. Dagmar Timmann, a neurologist at the local university medical center, in honor of the Bernd Fink Foundation, who had supported Dr. Timman's and Dr. Konczak's research in the past.   

 

The results of a large international, multi-center clinical trial on using vibro-tactile stimulation (VTS) as a neuromodulation method to treat the symptoms of people with cervical dystonia have been published in the journal Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. The study was a collaboration of HSCL director Jürgen Konczak, together with former lab members Jiapeng Xu and Jinseok Oh, colleagues at the University of Minnesota Department of Preventive Medicine and Rehabilitation, and clinical researchers in neurology at the University of Calgary, the University of Genova and the University of Rome in Italy. The study provides first systematic evidence that cervical VTS can induce fast-acting improvements in abnormal head posture in patients with cervical dystonia. 

Jürgen Konczak, Director of the HSC Lab, is coauthor of a research article published in the Journal of Neurology. The paper presents a new German language screening tool for clinicians to determine cognitive impairment in people with damage or disease of the cerebellum. It summarizes the results from a large multi-center study of medical centers across Germany.

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.