Douglas Van Daele’s lab

Limbic and Motor systems interactions in Laryngeal Function.

Funded by a $1.2 million dollar grant form the NIH goal of the study is to examine how the higher-level brain functions interact with brain stem or lower-level brain functions.

The study seeks to understand the following:

• To determine the detail neuroanatomic connection from the nucleus amibiguus to the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex.
• To determine the level at which the inter action occurs
• The determined the neurotransmitter receptors involved in the interaction.

Once the process is understood the significance is huge.  The established neural pathways may then be targeted for functional imaging studies that may later lead to medical and surgical therapies.  Ultimately this will promote better understanding of how speech is acquired and generated at the cortical level of voice disorders such as spasmodic dystonia (spasms of the vocal cords), and speech recovery after brain injury.