Researchers are now pursuing a treatment that could potentially be used to help restore paralyzed/damaged vocal cords. The procedure involves placing electrodes directly under the skin which will than stimulate the nerves.  This will hopefully allowing the muscle tissues to move that provide us with the ability of speech.

Alexander Leonessa, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, is working with fellow researchers to create the electrode-studded device that would be affixed to the side of the throat to electrically stimulate the nerves of the vocal cord. Atlanta’s Axion BioSystem are working along with Leonessa to produce this electrical pad. The pad will be connected by a wire to small device that would clip onto a belt.

The vocal cords are found in a very delicate part of the neck that can lead to multiple challenges for the researchers. They are surrounded by muscles and nerves that control our head, neck, breathing, and swallowing. Therefore, finding the right nerves in which they want to stimulate is not an easy task.

Christy Ludlow is a professor of communication sciences and disorders as well as the director of James Madison University’s Laboratory on Neural Bases of Communication and Swallowing in Harrisonburg, VA. Ludlow believes that Leonessa’s approach might not be the best to treat vocal cords because some stroke victims are most likely to develop speech problems due to lesions in the brain, which means their vocal cords work, just not the communication between the muscles and the brain. She also believes most vocal-fold paralysis affects the nerve endings near the larynx, therefore the signal could not even reach the muscle in need of stimulation. Ludlow says the thought of an easy non invasive procedure is “innovative and exciting, but still a long shot.”

The National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development awarded Leonessa with a fund of $480,000 to be able to further his research. Leonessa says, “The NSF does fund high-risk projects because when these projects do succeed they have a big impact.”

Patients with paralyzed vocal cords will be stimulated by electrical test to see if their ability to talk is positively affected by the forced contraction. Doctors at the Center of Voice and Swallowing Disorders of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina will work with Leonessa for the next five years testing and research their theory on the electrical pad treatment.