How throat and mouth shaping can lower pressure on your vocal cords
Laryngeal and vocal tract strategies to reduce vocal fold contact pressure
Trying specific throat and vocal-tract techniques to help adults with voice strain reduce pressure on their vocal cords.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | University of California Los Angeles NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Los Angeles, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11291311 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
You may be asked to try guided voice and throat techniques while researchers measure how your vocal cords move and contact. They'll use imaging (like CT) and biomechanical measurements to compare different laryngeal and vocal-tract configurations. The team will test whether the techniques that simulations predict to lower contact pressure actually do so in real people. Results could help make voice therapy more targeted and measurable.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Adults (21+) with phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction or persistent voice strain who can attend lab visits at UCLA would be ideal candidates.
Not a fit: People without hyperfunctional voice disorders, or those whose voice problems are due to structural lesions requiring surgery, may not benefit directly from these techniques.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could give clinicians objective measures and clearer techniques to reduce vocal-cord injury from voice strain.
How similar studies have performed: Previous support comes mainly from computer simulations and limited experimental data, so this work is building experimental confirmation of mostly theoretical findings.
Where this research is happening
Los Angeles, United States
- University of California Los Angeles — Los Angeles, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Zhang, Zhaoyan — University of California Los Angeles
- Study coordinator: Zhang, Zhaoyan
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.