Central Pathology in Spasmodic Dysphonia.

Introduction: Spasmodic dysphonia a voice disorder characterized by loss of voluntary control of vocal fold movements during speech production. The pathophysiology is not well understood, but there have been proposed connections to areas within the brain such as the reticular formation surrounding the tractus solitarius, spinal trigeminal and ambiguus nuclei, inferior olive, and pyramids.

Objective: To determine whether there are differences on brain Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with and without gadolinium in patients affected by spasmodic dysphonia compared with those without to determine whether there is a central process involved in spasmodic dysphonia (SD) pathophysiology.