Conventional lateral radiography was used in 18 elderly male patients to investigate the changes induced by general anaesthesia in the upper airway. The effect of tongue traction under anaesthesia was studied similarly in another 11 patients. Following induction of anaesthesia, there were highly significant approximations to the posterior pharyngeal wall of the soft palate (median change 1.3 mm...

Dermatomyositis (DM) is one of the idiopathic inflammatory myopathies caused by complement-mediated vasculopathy or vasculitis in the muscle. Although the gastrointestinal (GI) mucosa has been reported to be involved as a result of vasculitis or vasculopathy, ulceration in the pharynx is a rare manifestation of DM. A 54-year-old woman complaining of muscle weakness in the extremities, low-grade...

UNLABELLED The study of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has received growing attention over the past years since various aspects have not been sufficiently established. AIM To evaluate, with the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), changes in the area of the pharynx during wakefulness and induced sleep in patients with OSA. MATERIALS AND METHODS A prospective study of thirty-two patients ...

Persistent drooling in cases of cerebral palsy can be successfully controlled by a combination of bilateral parotid duct translocation and bilateral submandibular gland excision. Ten children are described who underwent this operation with satisfactory results. Apart from mile transient postoperative swelling of the cheek, there have been no postoperative complications. The importance of bilate...

Motor control is a complex process that requires interplay among the nervous system, muscles and environment. The simple anatomy, well-characterized muscle movements and ample resources for molecular and cellular dissection make the pharynx of the nematode C. elegans an attractive model system for the study of motor control. The C. elegans pharynx shows two clear muscle movements that are essen...

Neural circuits have long been known to modulate myogenic muscles such as the heart, yet a mechanistic understanding at the cellular and molecular levels remains limited. We studied how light inhibits pumping of the Caenorhabditis elegans pharynx, a myogenic muscular pump for feeding, and found three neural circuits that alter pumping. First, light inhibits pumping via the I2 neuron monosynapti...