Oral Sensorimotor Regulation Report

Oral sensorimotor regulation task
Participants
Thirty healthy volunteers (12 male and 18 female) in the age range of 18-32 years (Mean age: 23±3 years) were recruited from the staff and students of Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Also participants from previous studies were contacted and asked to participate in the current experiment. The volunteers had a good general and oral health. Before the start of the experiment they signed an informed consent and they filled in a questionnaire where they admitted not to have any systemic or neurological diseases, medication, allergies for nuts or seeds, previous endodontic or prosthetic (crowns /bridges/ implants /removable dentures) treatments of the anterior teeth (C-C), severe periodontitis, gross malocclusion (overjet/overbite) of the anterior teeth or pain in the orofacial region. All the participants were right-handed.

Sunflower Seeds

At the left side of the table a GoPro© was installed to video record the experiment from an angle of ±45˚. Prior to the start of the experiment participants were instructed to try to split sunflower seeds with the help of their hand, anterior teeth, lips and tongue in order to get the whole seed out of the shell. They were advised to place the seed vertically between their anterior teeth and take as much time as needed to perform the task. When they thought they were finished with the task, they had one attempt to remove the shell with their hand and spit the remnants of their mouth in a plastic cup. The instructions and task were also explained with a video. The part of the video where the task was demonstrated was shown twice. Subsequently participants answered questions concerning their ethnic background, their prior experience in performing the task, expected difficulty, expected performance during the task and their motivation (Table 2). Any uncertainties were answered before the start of the