The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City has received more than $5 million from the National Institutes of Health to study the causes and pathology of spasmodic dysphonia (SD), a rare neurological disorder that causes vocal cord spasms, in hopes of finding new drug targets. The disorder, which typically develops spontaneously in midlife, is characterized by interruptions in speech, making the voice break up or sound breathy or strained. Scientists don't know where in the brain SD originates or how it progresses, so they hope to identify diagnostic biomarkers for the disease with the funding. Currently, the only treatment available to alleviate symptoms is Botox, which is injected into both vocal chords. More