Meta-analysis of brain mechanisms of chewing and clenching movements
Abstract
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is widely used for investigating brain activation patterns associated with chewing and clenching movements. Whether studies consistently identify similar brain loci engaged in these movements remains unknown. We investigated the consistency with which specific brain loci were reported to be activated during teeth-occluding movements, using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis. Twenty fMRI studies that used fMRI to investigate brain activation during a chewing or clenching task in healthy participants were included. Data from the selected studies were pooled, and ALE methods were used to estimate the likelihood of finding a locus associated with the movements. We found that (i) The bilateral primary motor cortex/supplementary motor area/thalamus, the right primary somatosensory cortex (S1)/secondary somatosensory cortex and the posterior cerebellum (lobule VI) have been identified as reliable loci that show consistently activation when teeth occlude. (ii) The right S1 showed a significant likelihood of activation associated with both chewing and clenching, while the left S1 showed a greater likelihood of activation in chewing than in clenching. (iii) Both younger a...Continue Reading
References
Motor control and aging: links to age-related brain structural, functional, and biochemical effects.
The effects of chewing-side preference on human brain activity during tooth clenching: an fMRI study
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