抄録
It is known that we can enhance the athletic performance with voluntary clenching of the teeth, but the relationship between the clenching pattern and motor activity is not fully understood. To investigate the effects of occlusal pattern on motor activity, we examined the effects of thickness of occlusal plate and occlusal contact point on the modulation of soleus H-reflex. The subjects were 12 male and 5 female (aged 18 to 35) with normal dentition. First we examined the stimulation threshold displaying the maximum amplitude of the H-reflex in each subjects, and performed two experiments; 1) the recording of the H-reflex with clenching of four different plate (thickness; 2, 4, 6, 8 mm), 2) the recording of the H-reflex with clenching at bilateral, unilateral and frontal side. There was no significant correlation between the amplitude of the H-reflex and the thickness of occlusal plate (p >0.05). The amplitude induced by clenching at habitual mastication side was larger than that by clenching at non-habitual mastication side and frontal side (p <0.01). And there was no significant difference between the amplitude by clenching bilateral side and that by clenching habitual mastication side (p >0.05). These results suggest that the equal bilateral clenching is important for stabilization of motor activity. [J Physiol Sci. 2008;58 Suppl:S196]
