Digastric muscle response as a function of knowledge of the task to be performed

Whether the motor programme executed by the digastric muscles during a forceful bite is modified according to a subject's expectation that the resistance between the teeth will change was investigated. There were two experimental conditions: (1) tracking a ramp (drawn on an oscilloscope screen) by biting (isometrically) on a force transducer and holding it at 120 N, and (2) tracking the same ramp with a sudden unloading at 100 N. There were two groups of experiments: (1) control experiments in which subjects underwent a sudden and unexpected unloading of the jaw, and (2) experiments in which subjects were previously informed whether or not there was to be an unloading. In all experiments the subjects co-contracted their digastric muscles during the bite as compared to the state at rest. The subjects' responses fell into the three different types: (i) those who varied the level of tonic digastric activity only as a function of the experimental condition, (ii) those who co-contracted the digastric muscles at the same time as the masseter muscles, and (iii) those who changed the contraction pattern of the digastric muscles as a function of the experimental condition. If modulation of the digastric muscles occurred this is a 'feedforward' strategy mainly based on immediate past performance.