For three years, a 55-year-old man in southern China lived with neck pain that seemed ordinary. Then, over a single month, things changed. About twice a day, in episodes lasting 5 to 15 minutes, his hands would tremble, his muscles would jerk without warning, and he would cry out involuntarily.
The cause, according to a case report published March 31, 2026, in Frontiers in Surgery, was not in his brain. Scans of his head were normal. His surgeons traced the problem to cervical spondylosis, the age-related wear of the neck spine that affects most older adults. Once they relieved pressure on his spinal cord, the jerks and the vocal outbursts disappeared within 24 hours.
