Abstract
It has been known that the cerebral cortex has an important function to control swallowing movement in humans. Motor and sensory cortices are thought to be dominantly involved in swallowing movement. However, the detail cortical mechanisms underlying swallowing movement in humans are still remained unclear. In the present study, the cortical areas activated by a variety of swallowing tasks such as volitional saliva or water swallowing, jaw, tongue or hand movement in human subjects were precisely analyzed using f-MRI. Eight right handed healthy volunteers were introduced in the present study (4 males, 4 females, age range 27-41 years, mean 33.6±5.5 years). The primary motor cortex (MI), primary sensory cortex(SI) and cerebellum were activated during saliva or water swallowing, jaw and tongue movements. The insula, right middle frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus and supplementary motor cortex were activated during saliva or water swallowing, or tongue movement. Basal ganglia and left middle frontal gyrus were also activated during saliva swallowing and tongue movement, or during water swallowing, respectively. We also observed that the activation of MI and SI was significantly stronger during saliva swallowing compared with water swallowing. These findings suggest that several cortical regions relating sensory-motor functions are significantly involved in swallowing movement in humans. [J Physiol Sci. 2008;58 Suppl:S145]
