Contributions of Individual Muscles to the Submental Surface Electromyogram During Swallowing

ppalmer{at}med-info.com

Submental surface electromyographic recordings are commonly used in the investigation of swallowing disorders. The measured electromyography is thought to reflect the actions of floor-of-mouth muscles. Although this is a reasonable assumption, to date there have been no investigations to delineate which muscles contribute to this surface recording. The primary goal of this experiment was to determine which muscles contribute most to the submental surface. Electromyography was recorded simultaneously from the submental surface as well as from five individual muscles: mylohyoid, anterior belly of the digastric, geniohyoid, genioglossus and platysma. Three analysis methods were performed to estimate individual muscle contributions: correlation, numeric, and analytic. For the numeric and analytic analyses, a linear model was defined and used to represent the relationship between the surface and intramuscular recordings. Muscles that received a high correlation, numeric and/or analytic value were considered to be primary contributors to the submental recording. Regardless of analysis approach, the primary contributions to the submental surface recording were the mylohyoid, anterior belly of the digastric, and the geniohyoid muscles. Contributions from the genioglossus and the platysma muscles were minimal. Contributions as a function of bolus volume and viscosity are also discussed.

KEY WORDS: swallowing, oral muscles, electromyography

Submitted on August 4, 1998
Accepted on May 24, 1999

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				T. Tsukada, H. Taniguchi, S. Ootaki, Y. Yamada, and M. Inoue Effects of food texture and head posture on oropharyngeal swallowing J Appl Physiol, June 1, 2009; 106(6): 1848 - 1857. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R. D. Gross, C. W. Atwood Jr., S. B. Ross, J. W. Olszewski, and K. A. Eichhorn The Coordination of Breathing and Swallowing in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., April 1, 2009; 179(7): 559 - 565. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. M. Wheeler-Hegland, J. C. Rosenbek, and C. M. Sapienza Submental sEMG and Hyoid Movement During Mendelsohn Maneuver, Effortful Swallow, and Expiratory Muscle Strength Training J Speech Lang Hear Res, October 1, 2008; 51(5): 1072 - 1087. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				H. Taniguchi, T. Tsukada, S. Ootaki, Y. Yamada, and M. Inoue Correspondence between food consistency and suprahyoid muscle activity, tongue pressure, and bolus transit times during the oropharyngeal phase of swallowing J Appl Physiol, September 1, 2008; 105(3): 791 - 799. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				P. M. Palmer, D. M. Jaffe, T. M. McCulloch, E. M. Finnegan, D. J. Van Daele, and E. S. Luschei Quantitative Contributions of the Muscles of the Tongue, Floor-of-Mouth, Jaw, and Velum to Tongue-to-Palate Pressure Generation J Speech Lang Hear Res, August 1, 2008; 51(4): 828 - 835. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. A. Crary, G. D. Carnaby (Mann), and M. E. Groher Biomechanical correlates of surface electromyography signals obtained during swallowing by healthy adults. J Speech Lang Hear Res, February 1, 2006; 49(1): 186 - 193. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]