The phonemic inventory of Arabic includes sounds that involve a pharyngeal constriction. Sounds referred to as ‘pharyngeal’ (/ʕ/ and /ħ/) are reported to have a primary constriction in the pharynx, while sounds referred to as ‘pharyngealized’ (/sʕ/, /tʕ/, /dʕ/, and /ðʕ/ or /zʕ/) are reported to have a secondary constriction in the pharynx. Some studies propose grouping both types of sounds toge...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of gonorrhea of the pharynx among select samples of men who have sex with men (MSM) ranges from 9% to 15%. To our knowledge, there have been no longitudinal studies in a prospective MSM cohort to estimate pharyngeal gonorrhea incidence or predictors of infection. We examined the prevalence, incidence, and sociodemographic and behavioral predictors of pharyngeal gonorrh...

The majority of male patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) have an abnormal pharyngeal structure and function, with episodic complete airway occlusion during sleep. Since OSA is less common in females than in males, it is possible that other abnormalities are active in female patients with OSA. Consequently, we measured pharyngeal area and its lung volume-related changes (LVRC) from func...

To cite: Varadharajan K, Hassan D, Hay A, et al. BMJ Case Rep Published online: [please include Day Month Year] doi:10.1136/bcr-2014208495 DESCRIPTION An 86-year-old man presented to accident and emergency with symptoms and signs of a lower respiratory tract infection. He had a history of severe dysphagia and regurgitation of food associated with two-stone weight loss and a significant reductio...

We studied the control of pharyngeal excitation in Caenorhabditis elegans. By laser ablating subsets of the pharyngeal nervous system, we found that the MC neuron type is necessary and probably sufficient for rapid pharyngeal pumping. Electropharyngeograms showed that MC transmits excitatory postsynaptic potentials, suggesting that MC acts as a neurogenic pacemaker for pharyngeal pumping. Mutat...

The pharyngeal mesoderm of developing embryos contributes to broad regions of head and heart musculature. We have developed a novel method to study head and heart progenitor cell development with pharyngeal arches (also known as branchial arches) ex vivo. Using this method, we have recently described that the second pharyngeal arch contains self-renewing heart progenitors and serves as a microe...

Pharyngeal muscles are prone to distorsion during inspiratory negative pressure. Some pharyngeal muscles, called pharyngeal dilatators, exhibit tonic and/or phasic inspiratory activity. At the velar level, tensor palatini, glossopharyngeus, palatopharyngeus and musculus uvula drive the airflow towards nasal or buccal breathing. Genioglossus and geniohyoid muscles exert a forward propulsion to t...

We investigated the effects of water swallowing, pharyngeal stimulation, and oropharyngeal anesthesia on corticobulbar and craniobulbar projections to human swallowing musculature. Changes in pathway excitability were measured via electromyography from swallowed intraluminal pharyngeal and esophageal electrodes to motor cerebral and trigeminal nerve magnetic stimulation. After both water swallo...

We compared ligase chain reaction (LCR) assay with standard culture for the detection of pharyngeal Neisseria gonorrhoeae infection in men who have sex with men (MSM) presenting at a sexually transmitted diseases clinic in San Francisco. Pharyngeal specimens were obtained from 200 MSM who reported performing fellatio during the previous 2 weeks. Confirmatory testing of discrepant specimens was ...

Neuroradiologists generally do not fully appreciate the importance of the territory of the ascending pharyngeal artery. The ascending pharyngeal artery is a small but important artery that supplies multiple cranial nerves and anastomotic channels to the anterior and posterior cerebral circulations. Several disease processes in the head and neck involve the ascending pharyngeal artery. To evalua...