2011 Volume 52 Issue 1 Pages 9-18
This study employs magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques to construct anatomical images to facilitate understanding of motor function of the oropharyngeal region. MRI data were acquired in the sagittal, coronal and transverse planes under four imaging conditions (in-phase and opposed-phase conditions in field echo sequence, T1-weighted and proton-density-weighted conditions in spin echo sequence). MRI-RGB representations of the oropharyngeal region are established by the composition of red, blue and green channels using three types of images with different tissue contrasts. In those images, the extrinsic tongue muscles and part of the jaw muscles were recognizable. One of the intrinsic muscles, the vertical muscle, was not confirmed. Other intrinsic tongue muscles (superior longitudinal, inferior longitudinal, and transverse muscle) were partly observed including the surrounding adipose tissue. Anatomical visualization of the oropharyngeal region and its morphological construction in vivo will be useful for studies of speech, deglutition and respiration.