Anumitha Venkatraman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Postdoctoral Fellow
Thibeault Laboratory
Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Effects of Psychosocial Stress on Laryngeal Biology
Psychosocial stress and voice disorders are circularly and inextricably linked. While 25% of patients with voice disorders report increased self-perceived psychosocial stress, a single stressful event causes negative acoustic voice changes. Despite an associative relationship between stress and voice disorders, underlying biological mechanisms remain relatively unexplored. In the gut, stress-induced gut microbial dysbiosis (i.e., altered microbial composition), intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction and altered sensory mechanisms can increase risk of infection and pathogenic invasion, and delay recovery from injury. If replicated in the larynx, stress could increase laryngeal susceptibility to noxious environmental and systemic stimuli. My research explores the relationship between stress and laryngeal biology using animal models, invitro assays and clinical patients with dysphonia. This talk will highlight my findings wherein psychosocial stress alters laryngeal microbiome composition, vocal fold epithelial barrier integrity and laryngeal sensory mechanisms in the murine model. I will also show that stress-analogous levels of cortisol altered gene and protein expression of inflammatory, and profibrotic pathways in cultured vocal fold fibroblasts (essential for extracellular matrix remodeling). I will delineate current and future directions of this program including my research optimizing laryngeal microbiome sampling techniques in clinical patients with dysphonia.
This work was funded by National Institute of Deafness and Communication Disorders (Grants: T32DC009401 and 1F32DC021367), an ASHFoundation New Investigator Grant and an ABEA Young Investigator Award.