Abstract
A broad study of the patterns of mastication in mammals is currently being undertaken by the authors of this paper, using synchronised electromyography and cinefluorography. Several recent studies of mastication in a variety of mammals (Kallen and Gans, 1972; de Vree and Gans, 1973; Luschei and Goodwin, 1974; Weijs and Dantuma, 1975) have used roughly similar techniques. However, these studies, like others (Herring and Scapino, 1973; and see Hiiemae, 1976b) have concentrated on the relationship between activity in the adductors and the movements of the lower jaw; the Digastric has been considered to be the main depressor of the mandible. No attention has been given to the hyoid musculature as a whole or to the movements of the hyoid bone. This paper will show that the pattern of jaw and hyoid movements during chewing, and the characteristic features of the adductor and hyoid EMG activity, are so interrelated that neither can be explained without consideration of the other.
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© 1977 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Crompton, A.W., Thexton, A.J., Parker, P., Hiiemae, K. (1977). The activity of the jaw and hyoid musculature in the Virginian opossum, Didelphis virginiana. In: Stonehouse, B., Gilmore, D. (eds) The Biology of Marsupials. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_17
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