The vodka trial: In search of a treatment for vocal disorders, a researcher puts patient anecdotes to the test
Mondays are vodka days. For the members of Dr. Kristina Simonyan’s lab, this is not a feeling but a fact — not a result of the workday but a necessary part of it. Everything takes place strictly according to protocol. When Karen Feeley arrived one Monday in April 2019, they gave her scrubs, flimsy blue slipper-socks, and a crinkled white lab coat, and after some initial testing, led her into what they call a “behavioral room” — a joyless place with the air of an unused office.
Pharmacists had prepared the therapy specifically for her, in little reddish bottles that reminded her of liquid penicillin. A research assistant gave her careful instructions. But Feeley already knew exactly what do to do. “What do you do with a shot of vodka? Basically, you pour it down your neck. So I drank it and then banged the bottle on the table,” Feeley said.
Usually, she’s more of a wine or daiquiri sort of person, but she’d put aside her taste — and a few days of her time — to help answer a question that had been rattling around Simonyan’s mind. It had first appeared about 15 years ago, when Simonyan was doing neuroscience research in New York City, trying to understand exactly how the brain choreographs the intricate dance of muscle and air that gives rise to speech.
Betting that she could learn about language production by examining cases in which it’s slightly out of whack, she recruited patients like Feeley with laryngeal dystonia — also called spasmodic dysphonia — a mysterious condition that causes involuntary moving of the vocal cords. It creates breaks in words, strangled syllables, frustrating speech delays. Your voice vanishes and reappears, like a radio signal flickering in from far away. But some of Simonyan’s study participants kept telling her it happened less when they drank alcohol.
Simonyan didn’t pay much attention at first. She figured they probably just felt more relaxed. People overestimate all sorts of their own abilities when 531 patients, more than half said their symptoms improved with drink — and a significant number had sometimes hit the bottle to help ease them through the torment of social and professional interactions.
