Summary
Tongue movements are critical for speech, swallowing, and respiration; and tongue
dysfunction could lead to dysarthria, dysphagia, and obstructive sleep apnea, respectively.
Our current understanding of the contributions of specific tongue muscles (TOs) to
precise movement patterns is limited. Likewise, there is still little information
regarding the orientation of histologic muscle fibers of the tongue in humans, especially
between men and women. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the histologic organization
in the tongue of men and women. Ten tongues were studied in human specimens obtained
from necropsies (five men and five women). The muscles were analyzed using histology,
and the morphometric parameters were measured using Image Pro-Plus Software (Image Pro-Plus 6.0; Media Cybernetics, Silver Spring, MD). Slices were obtained from the anterior, median,
and posterior parts of the tongue. We classified and estimated the percentages of
transverse (T), oblique (O), and longitudinal (L) fibers in the tongue. To quantify
the percentage of fibers in each category in the tongue, the shape coefficient (Shape
Z) was estimated. Statistical differences were found between the orientation of the
muscle fibers of men and women only for the middle region of the tongue. The middle
region of the tongue in women compared with men has a smaller difference in the variation
of the percentage of fibers T (P = 0.0004), O (P = 0.0006), and L (P = 0.0013). These morphologic findings are probably related to physiological differences.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 14, 2014
Accepted:
December 17,
2013
Footnotes
This study was supported by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
