[Electromyographic silent period in the masseter and temporal muscles]

For some years, many authors have studied the silent periods (S.P.) in masticatory human muscles, during voluntary clenching, biting or mastication as well as during electrical or mechanical stimulation of various parts of the mouth. This S.P. appears as a flattening in the electromyograph tracing taken from masseter and temporalis anterior muscles simultaneously. After an analysis of the methods and results of previous authors, we give and discuss our result, obtained from records on masseter and temporalis anterior muscles, on right and left sides, on healthy subjects. They tapped first their teeth, then masticated pea-nuts, pieces of apple and soft bread. We obtained 571 S.P. after recording 1 745 cycles, and in contrary to the opinion of most of the authors, we were not able to obtain simultaneous S.P. in all four muscles at every cycle, except on 26 occasions. To conclude, we discuss our observations and suggest pathways for the inhibiting reflex of masticatory muscles during functions.