Demonstration of chewing-related areas in the brain via functional magnetic resonance imaging

Oktay Algin; Orhan Murat Kocak; Yasemin Gokcekuyu; Kemal S Turker

doi:10.5114/pjr.2023.124756

Demonstration of chewing-related areas in the brain via functional magnetic resonance imaging

Pol J Radiol. 2023 Jan 31:88:e65-e74. doi: 10.5114/pjr.2023.124756. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Oktay Algin^{1

2

3}, Orhan Murat Kocak⁴, Yasemin Gokcekuyu³, Kemal S Turker⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, City Hospital, Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey.
² Department of Radiology, Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara, Turkey.
³ National MR Research Center, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey.
⁵ Department of Physiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Gelisim University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Abstract

Purpose: To localize and identify chewing-related areas and their connections with other centres in the human brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Material and methods: The paradigm of the present study was block designed. Spontaneous and controlled chewing with sugar-free gum was used as the main task in a 3-Tesla fMRI unit with a 32-channel birdcage coil. Our study popu-lation comprised 32 healthy volunteers. To determine possible intersections, we also put the rosary pulling (silent tell one's beads) movement in the fMRI protocol. The data analyses were performed with the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) toolbox integrated into the Matlab platform.

Results: The superomedial part of the right cerebellum was activated during either pulling rosary beads or spontaneous chewing. This region, however, was not activated during controlled chewing. We did not find statistically significant activation or connection related to the brain stem.

Conclusion: We have confirmed that the cerebellum plays an important role in chewing. However, we could not find a definite central pattern generator (CPG) in the brain stem, which has been hypothesized to underlie spontaneous chewing.

Keywords: central pattern generator; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); locomotion; mastication (chewing); movement disorder; rhythmogenesis.