Loss of oral sensation impairs feeding performance and consistency of tongue-jaw coordination

Background: Individuals with impaired oral sensation report difficulty chewing, but little is known about the underlying changes to tongue and jaw kinematics. Methodological challenges impede the measurement of 3D tongue movement and its relationship to the gape cycle.

Objective: The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of loss of oral somatosensation on feeding performance, 3D tongue kinematics and tongue-jaw coordination.

Methodology: XROMM (X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology) was used to quantify 3D tongue and jaw kinematics during feeding in three rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) before and after an oral tactile nerve block. Feeding performance was measured using feeding sequence duration, number of manipulation cycles and swallow frequency. Coordination was measured using event- and correlation-based metrics of jaw pitch, anterior tongue length, width and roll.

Results: In the absence of tactile sensation to the tongue and other oral structures, feeding performance decreased, and the fast open phase of the gape cycle became significantly longer, relative to the other phases (p < .05). The tongue made similar shapes in both the control and nerve block conditions, but the pattern of tongue-jaw coordination became significantly more variable after the block (p < .05).

Conclusion: Disruption of oral somatosensation impacts feeding performance by introducing variability into the typically tight pattern of tongue-jaw coordination.