The possible activity of large and small jaw muscle units in experimental tooth clenching in man

Eight human subjects exercised maximum voluntary tooth clenching until there was complete exhaustion of the contracting jaw muscles (isometric endurance time). During the isometric muscle contractions the myoelectrical currents of the masseter and anterior temporalis muscle were sampled by bipolar surface electrodes, integrated, and cumulatively stored. The myoelectrical activity was studied at recording thresholds of 1 microV and 40 microV, i.e. all action potentials below threshold level were ignored. The observations suggested that the number of fast glycolytic and fast oxidative glycolytic motor units in the masseter muscle might have exceeded that in the anterior temporalis muscle; and/or the size of the masseter muscle units might have been larger than that of the anterior temporalis muscle units.