Recent studies of human arm movement have suggested that the control of stiffness may be important both for maintaining stability and for achieving differences in movement accuracy. In the present study, we have examined the voluntary control of postural stiffness in 3D in the human jaw. The goal is to address the possible role of stiffness control in both stabilizing the jaw and in achieving t...

Speech production involves some of the most precise and finely timed patterns of human movement. Here, in the context of jaw movement in speech, we show that spatial precision in speech production is systematically associated with the regulation of impedance and in particular, with jaw stiffness--a measure of resistance to displacement. We estimated stiffness and also variability during movemen...

Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) is a rare but serious disease that can affect person's upper or lower jaw.1Feng Z Ann J Zhang Y Factors influencing severity medication-related jaw: retrospective study.J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2021; 79: 1684-1689Abstract Full Text PDF Scopus (4) Google Scholar First described in 2002, it progressive death jawbone person exposed to medication k...

Intramandibular joints (IMJ) are novel articulations between bony elements of the lower jaw that have evolved independently in multiple fish lineages and are typically associated with biting herbivory. This novel joint is hypothesized to function by augmenting oral jaw expansion during mouth opening, which would increase contact between the tooth-bearing area of the jaws and algal substratum du...

This study investigates the motor pattern and head movements during feeding of a durophagus shark, the bonnethead Sphyrna tiburo, using electromyography and simultaneous high-speed video. Sphyrna tiburo feeds almost exclusively on hard-shelled crabs, with shrimp and fish taken occasionally. It captures crabs by ram feeding, then processes or reduces the prey by crushing it between molariform te...

Precise control of jaw length during development is crucial for proper form and function. Previously we have shown that in birds, neural crest mesenchyme (NCM) confers species-specific size and shape to the beak by regulating molecular and histological programs for the induction and deposition of cartilage and bone. Here we reveal that a hitherto unrecognized but similarly essential mechanism f...

There is a limited understanding of the normal function of the lateral pterygoid muscle (LP) and the role that this muscle plays in temporomandibular disorders. This article addresses the hypothesis that a major function of the LP is in the control of horizontal jaw movements. The range of fiber alignments suited to generating a major horizontal force vector (magnitude and direction), together ...

OBJECTIVES To test the hypotheses that Parkinson's disease can differentially produce deficits in voluntary and rhythmic jaw movements, which involve different neuronal circuits, and that levodopa treatment improves specific components of the motor deficit. METHODS Patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and control subjects were tested on a series of jaw motor tasks that included simple...

The purpose of the experiment was to explore relations between jaw and laryngeal functions. The general question was whether laryngeal adduction was affected by jaw opening or by jaw biting. Twelve untrained, vocally healthy male and female adults participated as subjects. Subjects produced repeated tokens of /uh/ in each of 12 experimental conditions involving combinations of 3 jaw openings (1...

Recent studies have demonstrated the ability of subjects to adjust the control of limb movements to counteract the effects of self-generated loads. The degree to which subjects change control signals to compensate for these loads is a reflection of the extent to which forces affecting movement are represented in motion planning. Here, we have used empirical and modeling studies to examine wheth...