Newly described muscle attachments to the anterior band of the articular disk of the temporomandibular joint.
The presence of these two muscle attachments will be helpful in treating TM disorders. Why they have not been previously described is a mystery, but it is more understandable when the difficulty of dissection is noted. Freeing the disk while investigating the retrodiskal area, and then performing fiber-by-fiber dissection of the deep masseter muscle are uncommon procedures. Muscle fibers often exist from the deep masseter muscle to the capsule of the TMJ, and these muscles could easily be mistaken for the fibers already known and, therefore, ignored when the masseter was removed in dissection. If the first specimen dissected had not been a well-developed male with strong tendon attachment, the attachments would have been missed in this case as well.
Myers
L J
LJ
Department of Anatomy, University of Oklahoma.
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D002358:Cartilage, Articular / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D005333:Fetus; D006801:Humans; D008251:Macaca; D008297:Male; D008334:Mandible / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D008406:Masseter Muscle / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D008410:Masticatory Muscles / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D013704:Temporomandibular Joint / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D015050:Zygoma / Q000033:anatomy & histology