Human jaw-opening muscle responses elicited by multiple-site electrical stimulation

Electrical stimuli were applied to subjects' upper and/or lower gingivae around the right canines; (i) during maintained relaxation of masticatory muscles; (ii) at an active opening position; (iii) while clenching in an incisal edge-to-edge contact (IEC) position; and (iv) at the wide-open position. Reflex responses of the suprahyoid and jaw-closing muscles were obtained using surface electrodes. The electrical stimulation produced segmented reflex excitation(s) in the suprahyoid muscle and conventional reflex excitation and/or inhibition in the jaw-closing muscles when some background activity was maintained in the muscle(s). The excitatory reflex in the suprahyoid muscle responded to multiple site electrical stimulation which was delivered on both the upper and lower jaw simultaneously rather than to single site stimulation. Also, the responses depended on the intensity of the electrical stimulation. In particular, stronger intensities resulted in longer latencies. The results support the suggestions in our previous studies with mechanical stimuli, i.e. that the human jaw-opening reflex can be obtained only when some background activity is maintained in the jaw openers, perhaps due to low threshold afferent input, and that spatial summation may be effective for the reflex.