The Human Laryngeal Innervation Revisited—The Role of the Neural Connections

Abstract

In spite that vascular inconvenients or immunological rejections have been solved in relation with larynx transplant, a successful functional reinnervation has not been achieved. Some studies have suggested that laryngeal nerve connection may contain motor fibers, which could explain unexpected evoked responses in electromyographic studies or the different positions adopted of the vocal folds after similar nerve lesions. Ten patients with unexpected evoked responses after laryngeal nerve stimulation were selected. All the patients underwent a total laryngectomy due to oncological causes. In every case, laryngeal nerve connections were observed. All of them were morphologic and histologic processed for choline-acetyltransferase immunohistochemistry. The presence of motor axons in the nerve connections has been demonstrated, which would explain that the motor innervation to the laryngeal muscles could be dual through these variable connections. This also would justify the difficulty of carrying out laryngeal nerve reinnervation procedures. Anat Rec, 302:646–651, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.