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DOI: 10.4103/1947-489X.210215
Bilateral vocal cord paralysis with acute ischemic stroke
Vocal cords receive nerve supply from recurrent laryngeal nerve which is a branch of the vagus nerve. Cerebral motor cortex projects corticobulbar tracts to the motor nucleus (nucleus ambiguous) of the vagus found in medulla. Vagus nerve leaves the skull through jugular foramen and travels through the carotid sheath. The left vagus gives rise to left recurrent laryngeal nerve at the aortic arch, whereas the right vagus gives rise to right recurrent laryngeal nerve at the subclavian artery. Any disruption of this pathway by any entity will cause unilateral vocal cord paralysis. Strokes that affect the motor cortex do not cause unilateral vocal cord paralysis since vagus nerve nucleus receives corticobulbar tract from both sides of the brain. We present an unusual case of bilateral vocal cord paralysis caused by unilateral right insular stroke which is not related to this pathway.
Publication History
Received: 08 October 2015
Accepted: 18 March 2016
Article published online:
07 July 2022
© 2016. The Libyan Authority of Scientific Research and Technologyand the Libyan Biotechnology Research Center. All rights reserved. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License,permitting copying and reproductionso long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, oradapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
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