Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Mastication and drinking are rhythmic and cyclic oral behaviors that require interactions between the tongue, jaw and a food or liquid bolus, respectively. During mastication, the tongue transports and positions the bolus for breakdown between the teeth. During drinking, the tongue aids in ingestion and then transports the bolus to the oropharynx. The objective of this study was to compare jaw and tongue kinematics during chewing and drinking in pigs. We hypothesized there would be differences in jaw gape cycle dynamics and tongue protraction-retraction between behaviors. Mastication cycles had an extended slow-close phase, reflecting tooth-food-tooth contact, whereas drinking cycles had an extended slow-open phase, corresponding to tongue protrusion into the liquid. Compared with chewing, drinking jaw movements were of lower magnitude for all degrees of freedom examined (jaw protraction, yaw and pitch), and were bilaterally symmetrical with virtually no yaw. The magnitude of tongue protraction-retraction (Txt), relative to a mandibular coordinate system, was greater during mastication than during drinking, but there were minimal differences in the timing of maximum and minimum Txt relative to the jaw gape cycle between behaviors. However, during drinking, the tongue tip is often located outside the oral cavity for the entire cycle, leading to differences between behaviors in the timing of anterior marker maximum Txt. This demonstrates that there is variation in tongue-jaw coordination between behaviors. These results show that jaw and tongue movements vary significantly between mastication and drinking, which hints at differences in the central control of these behaviors.
Source: Journal of Experimental Biology
DOI: 10.1242/jeb.239509
Institutions: Ohio University, Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine
Language: English
Subfield: Urology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funders: National Science Foundation, Ohio Board of Regents, Ohio State University, National Institutes of Health, Ohio Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Studies, Ohio University, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: Ontogeny of the pre-pharyngeal swallow: effect of dietary texture-modification on the development of tongue kinematics and performance, G112121623, Effect of lingual nerve injury on oromotor function, G5511894113, Collaborative Research: The Evolutionary Significance of Variability in Mammalian Chewing: Influence of Dietary Specialization and Oral Afferents on Jaw and Hyolingual Movement, MRI: Acquisition of Instrumentation for Comparative Experimental Biomechanics Research
OpenAlex ID: W3133868853