3/6/2023 0 Comments Dr twistit![]() In this animation of a macaque chewing, we can see how a reconstructed tongue-volume flexes, twists, and rolls in coordination with the movement of the mouth. ![]() Overall, the coordinated motion of the tongue and mouth manipulates food to remain within reach for the teeth to crush it, while it also maintains food inside of the mouth in preparation for the next chew cycle. Then, as the mouth closes, the tongue retreats, allowing the now fragmented food to fall back into the mouth and avoiding a painful tongue bite. Thus, as the mouth opens, the tongue changes its shape and position, pushing food towards the molars: specifically, towards the side of the mouth where the food will be crushed. It all has to do with food being in the ‘right’ spot meaning in-between the molars so that it can be chewed. The precise, biological mechanisms that control tongue motion remain unknown, but Feilich and her colleagues speculate why the tongue might move in this manner. Feilich and her colleagues reconstructed a volume that approximated the shape of the actual macaque tongue (a), and observed that the human tongue postures shown by Abd-el-Malek’s study in 1954 (b) correspond to the tongue postures she and her team reconstructed in Macaques (c). Their research revealed that macaque tongues move in coordination with the opening and closing of the mouth: as the mouth opens, the tongue flexes, twists, and rolls towards one side of the mouth and, as the mouth closes, the tongue retreats and rests below the palate. Laurence-Chasen.īuilding upon Abd-el-Malek’s work, Kara Feilich and colleagues in Callum Ross’s laboratory at the University of Chicago studied how the tongues of macaque monkeys move as they feed. Feilich and her colleagues conducted the macaque feeding study. X-ray room at the University of Chicago where Dr. Sixty-eight years later, cutting-edge, three-dimensional, x-ray-based technology allows scientists to measure precisely how tongues achieve these postures. ![]() This was when Abd-el-Malek sketched various tongue postures he observed inside the mouth of individuals missing their front teeth. When people eat and drink, their tongues are busy doing all kinds of wild things, but the exact way tongues move was a complete mystery until 1954.
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