The average human swallows 500 to 700 times a day. Imagine if each of those swallows was a struggle.
For many who suffer from esophageal motility disorders like dysphagia that affect the way the muscles in the esophagus deliver food and liquids to the stomach, the act of swallowing can be difficult or even painful. It can turn something as simple as a sip of water into a violent fit of coughing.Coverdell and her co-authors – John Campbell, a molecular neuroscientist and biology professor with the College, and Stephen Abbott, a pharmacology professor with UVA’s School of Medicine – were focused on a region of the hindbrain in the lower part of the brainstem called the nucleus ambiguus.