Muscles we Use to Eat
There are 43 muscles in the face. Certain ones used for smiling, frowning, raising your eye brow, puckering your lips and so on. Today we will look at the exciting muscles used when we eat! There are four of them; Temporalis, masseter, lateral pterygoid and medial pterygoid. The temporalis, masseter and medial pterygoid raise the mandible (lower jaw) up against the maxilla (upper jaw). A good way to remember this is My Teeth Meet using the first letter for each of the muscles! The lateral pyterygoid's primary function is to protrude and open the lower jaw when chewing and is also used to help in conduction with the medial ptyergoid to move the jaw side to side. So next time you are having a snack you can think about your exciting muscles of mastication!
~Kim
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