Brain and Voice Signatures in Teachers
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Stress induction.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Voice Disorders, Voice Fatigue. Basic parameters: 21 years — 39 years · Female.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Germany
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Neurobiological and Psychobiological Signatures of Vocal Effort in Early Career Teachers
Overview
Primary muscle tension dysphonia voice disorder with symptoms of vocal strain and vocal fatigue is common and can have a significant negative impact on quality of Life. Yet, primary muscle tension dysphonia's causes are unknown precluding precise diagnostic classification. Stress and personality are thought to play a role and thus, the project aims to determine the practical and clinical effect of stress on the control of voice and speech in the brain. Participants are female early career teachers and student teachers with symptoms of vocal fatigue, as well as control participants without vocal fatigue, who perform speech tasks on two different occasions. Neural (imaging of brain), psychobiological (saliva, personality), and voice and speech (muscle activity of voice muscles on the neck with surface sensors, audio recordings) data will compare reactivity patterns of teachers who are stressresponders with those who are nonresponders as well as control participants. The central hypothesis is that voice box stress responders have heightened emotion-motor activations involving the emotional voice production pathway, which correlate with changes in voice muscle activity in the anterior neck. The results will provide fundamentally missing data in our understanding of the role of stress in vocal complaints and will yield new insights about the neural underpinnings of primary muscle tension dysphonia. The study findings will have a significant impact on how clinicians identify so-called laryngoresponders to help them prevent voice disorders.
Interventions
- Behavioral Stress induction
Induction of anticipatory stress to compare voice and speech control and production with and without exposure to stress.
Primary outcome measures
- Vocal fatigue [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI area 4p [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Salivary cortisol [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Suprahyoid muscle activity [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Infrahyoid muscle activity [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, Social Potency [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, Stress Reaction [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, social anxiety [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
Secondary outcome measures (12)
- Vocal fatigue [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Voice quality of life [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Vocal tract discomfort [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Informal questionnaire on vocal health [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI SMA [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI ACC [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI MCC [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI Amygdala [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- BOLD MRI PAG [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, Wellbeing [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, Social Closeness [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
- Personality, social anxiety [Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 month]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
Teachers (max. 10 years full-time) or student teachers in good health between 21 and 39 years with symptoms of vocal fatigue.
Control participants in good health between 21 and 39 years without symptoms of vocal fatigue.
Exclusion criteria
- Lefthandedness
- Smoking (past 5 years)
- Known changes of the vocal folds (e.g., vocal fold nodules), vocal fold paralysis, surgeries on the larynx or thryoid or current organic or neurological changes of the vocal folds or vocal function per videoendoscopy and -stroboscopy of the larynx
- History of voice therapy
- Hoarseness
- Respiratory illness, allergies (respiratory, silver), reflux or asthma at time of participation
- Hearing disorder or hearing aids
- Psychological, neurological or endocrinological disorders
- Psychotropic or steorid medications
- Body mass index > 30
- Indications against MRI such as metail parts in or on the body (e.g., permanent dental prostheses or braces, screws, prostheses, piercings or large tattoos
- Nearsightedness > -5 diopters, if only glasses are worn
- Claustrophobia
- Pregnancy
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Non-randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Basic science
Study locations
Germany · 1 center
- University Hospital Bonn — Bonn
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06126627 · R01DC018026