A comparative electromyographic and kinesiographic study of deliberate and habitual mastication in man

Twelve healthy, fully-dentate subjects participated in experiments which included the continuous recording of surface electromyography and jaw movement during habitual and deliberate right-sided or left-sided chewing of a coherent bolus. Analogue data streams were converted to digital values. Root-mean-square (r.m.s.) muscle-activity traces were computed from raw electromyographic data. The working side was defined as the side from which the mandible approached the position of occlusal stoppage when in the most cranially directed part of the chewing cycle. In any given muscle, greater mean peak r.m.s. activities were found with ipsilateral than contralateral bolus replacement ( p < 0.01, s); such differences were more pronounced for the masseter than the anterior temporal muscles. During habitual chewing, mean peak r.m.s. activities exceeded the value established by deliberate mastication with ipsilateral bolus placement in 27 of 48 muscles; this may be because of more vigorous chewing during habitual performance. No subject was strictly unilateral in their preference for bolus placement and in 6 of the 12 subjects, there was a timed side-switching of the bolus within the masticatory sequence. The results also indicated that any averaging of data based upon time-amplitude alone would be inappropriate for habitual chewing because of the call for different working sides within a particular masticatory sequence. Thus a new data format based upon numerical representation of the electromyographic activity against time was introduced.