Peripheral Components of Motor Control

Abstract

Movements in the facial and oral-pharyngeal area are carried out by a variety of skeletal muscles with a variety of functional roles that include mastication, speech, swallowing, sucking and suckling, facial expression, gagging, vomiting, coughing, sneezing, snoring, airway maintenance, and jaw posture. The muscles used for this multiplicity of motility patterns range from the bulky jaw muscles (masseter and temporalis) to the delicate muscles associated with motility of the palate (tensor palati) and eardrums (tensor tympani, stapedius).* The cranial nerve motor nuclei associated with the V, VII, IX, X, XI, and XII nerves (Fig. A3, Appendix) in particular contain the motorneurons innervating these muscles, and the variety of sensory inputs to, and the complex interplay between, these motorneurons underlie the various motility patterns.