We have repudiated neither the methods nor the conclusions of the research undertaken
by Dr. Pamela Davis and Dr. Shi Ping Zang. On the contrary we have duly cited their
major works.
1
,2
Our assertions neither contradict nor challenge any hypothesis, data, or results
published by a wider scientific community on PAG control of vocal behavior, as wrongly
claimed by Davis and Zhang. The main result of the work of Davis and Zhang
1
is “two fundamental patterns of patterned respiratory and laryngeal muscle activity evoked
following stimulation of discrete regions of the PAG,” which, according to them, may or may not be associated with vocalization (page 11346). Zhang et al
1
,2
did not undertake any specific electromyography (EMG) analysis, except providing
integrated waveforms to show patterns of muscle activity. The records they provided
are also based on cohorts of D, L, Homocysteic Acid (DLH) injections, as well as muscle
recordings obtained in subsets of cats (genioglossus (GG)/digastric (DG) data based
on 2 experiments, 11C/IO data based on 4 experiments and so on, as tabulated in their
results section). With such subset of recordings for each muscle, normalization of
their data across all animals to undertake various quantitative analyses is not possible.
That is probably the reason why Zhang et al
1
classified vocalizations as type A and type B sounds and mainly focused on elucidation
of patterned muscle activity following stimulation of the PAG.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 03, 2021
Accepted:
January 8,
2021
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of The Voice Foundation.
