Dynamic MRI studies of the upper airway during speaking, singing or swallowing are complicated by the need for high temporal resolution and the presence of air‐tissue interfaces that may give rise to image artifacts such as signal void and geometric distortions. This work exploits a recently developed real‐time MRI technique to address these challenges for monitoring speech production at 3 T. The method combines a short‐echo time radial FLASH MRI sequence (pulse repetition time/echo time = 2.22/1.44 ms; flip angle 5°) with pronounced undersampling (15 radial spokes per image) and image reconstruction by regularized nonlinear inversion. The resulting serial images at 1.5 mm in‐plane resolution and 33.3 ms acquisition time are free of motion or susceptibility artifacts. This application focuses on a dynamic visualization of the main articulators during natural speech production (Standard Modern German). Respective real‐time MRI movies at 30 frames per second clearly demonstrate the spatiotemporal coordination of lips, tongue, velum, and larynx for generating vowels, consonants, and coarticulations. The quantitative results for individual phonetic events are in agreement with previous non‐MRI findings. Magn Reson Med, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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To subjectively and objectively evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of preservative-free Ectoin ® Eye Spray -Colloidal (EES09) and Tears Again ® Eye Spray (TA) in subjects with mild-moderate dry eye disease (DED), and to compare efficacy of these two eye sprays with each other. Methods: Thirty-six volunteers (average age 32.3 ± 16.1 years; 26 females) were successfully recruited for this prospective double-blind study with between-subject design and randomly divided into two groups (gender and age balanced): Group A received EES09 and Group B received TA during the treatment phase. Inclusioncriteria were a minimum age of 18 years, a score of 18.0 or higher on the OSDI questionnaire, and a non-invasive tear break up time (NIKBUT, Oculus Keratograph M5, Oculus, Germany) of no more than 10s in at least one eye. The objective variables NIKBUT, conjunctival redness, lipid layer and osmolarity (TearLab Cooperation, USA) were assessed at baseline, 10 min. after spray application and after a treatment phase of 10±3 days (3x applications daily). Symptoms, tolerance and handling were evaluated with the OSDI and VAS questionnaires. Results: A statistically significant increase in NIKBUT and improvement in DED symptoms were obtained for the overall group (mean NIKBUT 7.7 ± 1.7s vs. 11.6 ± 4.6s, p<0.001; mean OSDI score: 36.1 ± 12.7 vs. 20. 7± 12.7, p<0.001) during course of treatment. No statistically significant effect was established for the variables lipid layer (p = 0.406), conjunctival redness (p = 0.766) and osmolarity (p = 0.378). No statistically significant differences were observed between the groups, for any variable. The noninferioritycriterion for EES09 towards TA could be shown for the scores of the dry eye symptoms via VAS questionnaire and the variable NIKBUT. Conclusions: A beneficial treatment effect was confirmed for both, symptoms of DED and the objective variable NIKBUT. Both eye sprays were rated favourably in view of perceived tolerability and handling of the spray bottle.

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