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1. Effects of laryngeal manipulations on voice gender perception

   https://doi.org/10.21437/Interspeech.2022-10815  

   Zhang, Zhaoyan; Zhang, Jason; Kreiman, Jody (September 2022, Interspeech Proceedings)
2. The Shape of Sound: a Geometric Morphometrics Approach to Laryngeal Functional Morphology

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-019-09466-9  

   Borgard, Heather L; Baab, Karen; Pasch, Bret; Riede, Tobias (May 2019, Journal of Mammalian Evolution)

   Diversification of animal vocalizations plays a key role in behavioral evolution and speciation. Vocal organ morphology represents an important source of acoustic variation, yet its small size, complex shape, and absence of homologous landmarks pose major challenges to comparative analyses. Here, we use a geometric morphometric approach based on geometrically homologous landmarks to quantify shape variation of laryngeal cartilages of four rodent genera representing three families. Reconstructed cartilages of the larynx from contrast-enhanced micro-CT images were quantified by variable numbers of three-dimensional landmarks placed on structural margins and major surfaces. Landmark sets were superimposed using generalized Procrustes analysis prior to statistical analysis. Correlations among pairwise Procrustes distances were used to identify the minimum number of landmarks necessary to fully characterize shape variation. We found that the five species occupy distinct positions in morphospace, with variation explained in part by phylogeny, body size, and differences in vocal production mechanisms. Our findings provide a foundation for quantifying the contribution of vocal organ morphology to acoustic diversification. 

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3. Assessments of social vulnerability on laryngeal cancer treatment & prognosis in the US

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-025-03056-8  

   Fei-Zhang, David J; Cuenca, Camaren M; Haskins, Angela D; Stein, Andrew P; Lott, David G; Patel, Urjeet A; Smith, Stephanie S; Dimachkieh, Amy L; Osazuwa-Peters, Nosayaba; D’Souza, Jill N; et al (May 2025, British Journal of Cancer)

   Abstract BackgroundPrevious social determinants of health (SDoH) studies on laryngeal cancer (LC) have assessed individual factors of socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity but seldom investigate a wider breadth of SDoH-factors for their effects in the real-world. This study aims to delineate how a wider array of SDoH-vulnerabilities interactively associates with LC-disparities. MethodsThis retrospective cohort study assessed 74,495 LC-patients between 1975 and 2017 from the Surveillance-Epidemiology-End Results (SEER) database using the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) from the CDC, total SDoH-vulnerability from 15 SDoH variables across specific vulnerabilities of socioeconomic status, minority-language status, household composition, and infrastructure/housing and transportation, which were measured across US counties. Univariate linear and logistic regressions were performed on length of care/follow-up and survival, staging, and treatment across SVI scores. ResultsSurvival time dropped significantly by 34.37% (from 72.83 to 47.80 months), and surveillance time decreased by 28.09% (from 80.99 to 58.24 months) with increasing overall social vulnerability, alongside advanced staging (OR 1.15; 95%CI 1.13–1.16), increased chemotherapy (OR 1.13; 95%CI 1.11–1.14), decreased surgical resection (OR 0.91; 95%CI 0.90–0.92), and decreased radiotherapy (OR 0.97; 95%CI 0.96–0.99). DiscussionIn this SDoH-study of LCs, detrimental care and prognostic trends were observed with increasing overall SDoH-vulnerability. 

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4. Automatic Estimation of Laryngeal Vestibule Closure Duration Using High-Resolution Cervical Auscultation Signals

   https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_PERSP-20-00073  

   Sabry, Aliaa; Mahoney, Amanda S.; Mao, Shitong; Khalifa, Yassin; Sejdić, Ervin; Coyle, James L. (December 2020, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups)

   null (Ed.)

   Purpose Safe swallowing requires adequate protection of the airway to prevent swallowed materials from entering the trachea or lungs (i.e., aspiration). Laryngeal vestibule closure (LVC) is the first line of defense against swallowed materials entering the airway. Absent LVC or mistimed/shortened closure duration can lead to aspiration, adverse medical consequences, and even death. LVC mechanisms can be judged commonly through the videofluoroscopic swallowing study; however, this type of instrumentation exposes patients to radiation and is not available or acceptable to all patients. There is growing interest in noninvasive methods to assess/monitor swallow physiology. In this study, we hypothesized that our noninvasive sensor-based system, which has been shown to accurately track hyoid displacement and upper esophageal sphincter opening duration during swallowing, could predict laryngeal vestibule status, including the onset of LVC and the onset of laryngeal vestibule reopening, in real time and estimate the closure duration with a comparable degree of accuracy as trained human raters. Method The sensor-based system used in this study is high-resolution cervical auscultation (HRCA). Advanced machine learning techniques enable HRCA signal analysis through feature extraction and complex algorithms. A deep learning model was developed with a data set of 588 swallows from 120 patients with suspected dysphagia and further tested on 45 swallows from 16 healthy participants. Results The new technique achieved an overall mean accuracy of 74.90% and 75.48% for the two data sets, respectively, in distinguishing LVC status. Closure duration ratios between automated and gold-standard human judgment of LVC duration were 1.13 for the patient data set and 0.93 for the healthy participant data set. Conclusions This study found that HRCA signal analysis using advanced machine learning techniques can effectively predict laryngeal vestibule status (closure or opening) and further estimate LVC duration. HRCA is potentially a noninvasive tool to estimate LVC duration for diagnostic and biofeedback purposes without X-ray imaging. 

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5. Use of Motion Capture Technology to Study Extrinsic Laryngeal Muscle Tension and Hyperfunction

   https://doi.org/10.1002/lary.30829  

   Hogue, Steven; Guo, Xiaohu; Morrison, Robert A.; McDowell, Sarah; Shembel, Adrianna C. (June 2023, The Laryngoscope)

   ObjectivesPatients with primary muscle tension dysphonia (pMTD) commonly report paralaryngeal pain and discomfort, and extrinsic laryngeal muscle (ELM) tension and hyperfunction are commonly implicated. However, quantitative physiological metrics to study ELM movement patterns for the characterization of pMTD diagnosis and monitoring of treatment progress are lacking. The objectives of this study were to validate motion capture (MoCap) technology to study ELM kinematics, determine whether MoCap could distinguish ELM tension and hyperfunction between individuals with and without pMTD, and investigate relationships between common clinical voice metrics and ELM kinematics. MethodsThirty subjects (15 with pMTD and 15 controls) were recruited for the study. Sixteen markers were placed on different anatomical landmarks on the chin and anterior neck. Movements across these regions were tracked during four voice and speech tasks using two three‐dimensional cameras. Movement displacement and variability were determined based on 16 key‐points and 53 edges. ResultsIntraclass correlation coefficients demonstrated high intra‐ and inter‐rater reliability (p's < 0.001). Other than greater movement displacements around the thyrohyoid space during longer phrasing (reading passage, 30‐s diadochokinetics) and more movement variability in patients with pMTD, kinematic patterns between groups were similar across the 53 edges for the four voice and speech tasks. There were also no significant correlations between ELM kinematics and standard voice metrics. ConclusionResults demonstrate the feasibility and reliability of MoCap for the study of ELM kinematics. Level of Evidence3Laryngoscope, 133:3472–3481, 2023 

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