Originally Posted by Jo*mar

hmmm ...
[A bruit is an audible vascular sound associated with turbulent blood flow. Although usually heard with the stethoscope, such sounds may occasionally also be palpated as a thrill. In the head and neck, these auscultatory sounds may originate in the heart (cardiac valvular murmurs radiating to the neck), the cervical arteries (carotid artery bruits), the cervical veins (cervical venous hum), or arteriovenous (AV) connections (intracranial AV malformations). These sounds may be normal, innocent findings (i.e., a venous hum in a child) or may point to underlying pathology (i.e., a carotid artery bruit caused by atherosclerotic stenosis in an adult). Head and neck bruits loom especially important today because physicians encounter arterial occlusive disease more frequently as a greater proportion of our population lives longer.]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK289/