Recent research suggests that discoveries in anatomy are still possible.
The musculature on the side of your cheekbones is the most prominent of the jaw muscles. Anatomy textbooks traditionally describe mass as a muscle formed by two layers: one superficial and one deep.
But now, a group of researchers in Switzerland claim to have discovered a part of the jaw muscle that has gone unnoticed: They have described an even deeper third layer of mass.
“While it is generally believed that the anatomy of the past 100 years has contained everything that can be found in the human body, our discovery is comparable to the discovery by zoologists of a new vertebrate species,” said study co-author Jens said in one. Statement. Christoph Turp, professor at the University Center for Dental Medicine in Basel, Switzerland.
deep layer
The researchers studied jaw muscle structure, CT scans, tissue sections from dead people who donated their bodies to science, and MRI data from living people.
They identified this deep third layer attached to the jaw processes (the bulge on the surface of the bone).
This process is called a “coronoid”, which is why the authors of the research propose that this new layer musculus masseter pars coronidia,
Study co-author Szilvia Mezzi explains that although the three-tiered masseter muscle has been described previously, the existing literature is unclear about this and is sometimes contradictory.
The expert, who works in the Department of Biomedicine at the University of Basel, says the mass is sometimes described as one layer, sometimes as two, and when described as three layers. It is seen as a special variation of some individuals.
“We wanted to reason for this discrepancy,” Mezzi tells BBC Newssee Mundo. “With our research, we realized that it wasn’t just one variation, it was consistent, the muscle was consistent.”
What is the function?
According to Mezzi, this newly discovered layer has a clearly different function of mass than the other two layers.
The first layer is responsible for raising the jaw, the second helps to prevent it from moving backward or forward; And the third helps to retract, stabilize and close the jaw.
For the specialist, this finding is important to dentists and surgeons, as it indicates that the masseur behaves differently than previously thought.
Furthermore, experts say, their research shows that we do not have a thorough mapping of the human body and we still have much to discover.
