{"doi":"10.1002/mds.70114","title":"Brain–Computer Interface Improves Symptoms of Isolated Focal Laryngeal Dystonia: A Single‐Blind Study","abstract":"BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Laryngeal dystonia (LD) is a focal task-specific dystonia, affecting speaking but not whispering or emotional vocalizations. Therapeutic options for LD are limited. We developed and tested a non-invasive, closed-loop, neurofeedback, brain-computer interface (BCI) intervention for LD treatment. METHODS: Ten patients with isolated focal LD participated in the study. The personalized BCI system included visual neurofeedback of individual real-time electroencephalographic (EEG) activity during symptomatic speaking compared to asymptomatic whispering, presented in the virtual reality (VR) environment of real-life scenarios. During five consecutive days of intervention, patients used the BCI to learn to modulate their abnormally increased brain activity during speaking and match it to near-normal activity of asymptomatic whispering. Changes in voice symptoms and EEG activity were quantified for the evaluation of BCI effects. RESULTS: Compared to baseline, LD patients had a statistically significant reduction of their voice symptoms on Days 1-5 of BCI intervention. Thi was paralleled by improved controllability of the visual neurofeedback and a significant reduction of left frontal delta power, including superior and middle frontal gyri, on Day 1 and left central gamma power, including premotor, primary sensorimotor, and inferior parietal areas, on Days 3 and 5. The majority of patients (70%) reported sustained positive effects of the BCI intervention on their voice quality 1 week after the study participation. CONCLUSION: The closed-loop BCI neurofeedback intervention specifically targeting disorder pathophysiology shows significant potential as a novel treatment option for patients with LD and likely other forms of task-specific focal dystonia. © 2025 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.","journal":"Movement Disorders","year":2025,"id":527457,"datarank":0.20794415416798362,"base_score":1.3862943611198906,"endowment":1.3862943611198906,"self_citation_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.958,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1404793,"name":"Garrett Tougas","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1404193,"name":"Jacob Bernstein","orcid":"0000-0003-2774-9030","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1404794,"name":"Nicole Buie","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1243493,"name":"Anna F. Rumbach","orcid":"0000-0002-6542-4942","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":404714,"name":"Kristina Simonyan","orcid":"0000-0001-7444-0437","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1174046,"name":"Stefan K. Ehrlich","orcid":"0000-0002-3634-6973","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:50:39.280101Z","pmid":"41204680","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}