Bucinator muscle


The buccinator is a thin quadrilateral muscle occupying the interval between the maxilla and the mandible at the side of the face. It forms the anterior part of the cheek or the lateral wall of the oral cavity.

Structure

It arises from the outer surfaces of the alveolar processes of the maxilla and mandible, corresponding to the three pairs of molar teeth and in the mandible, it is attached upon the bucinator crest posterior to the third molar; and behind, from the anterior border of the pterygomandibular raphe which separates it from the constrictor pharyngis superior.
The fibers converge toward the angle of the mouth, where the central fibers intersect each other, those from below being continuous with the upper segment of the orbicularis oris, and those from above with the lower segment; the upper and lower fibers are continued forward into the corresponding lip without decussation.

Innervation

Motor innervation is from the buccal branch of the facial nerve. Sensory innervation is supplied by the buccal branch of the mandibular part of the trigeminal.

Function

Its purpose is to pull back the angle of the mouth and to flatten the cheek area, which aids in holding the cheek to the teeth during chewing. This action causes the muscle to keep food pushed back on the occlusal surface of the posterior teeth, as when a person chews. By keeping the food in the correct position when chewing, the bucinator assists the muscles of mastication.
It aids whistling and smiling, and in neonates it is used to suckle.

Structures piercing the bucinator

  1. Parotid duct
  2. Molar glands of cheeks
  3. Buccal branch of mandibular nerve

    Etymology

A buccinator in classical Latin is a trumpeter, or more precisely, the person who blows the bucina. The name bucina could refer in Roman antiquity to a crooked horn or trumpet, a shepherd's horn or a war-trumpet. Despite its similarity to the classical Latin name for cheek, i.e. bucca, the words bucinator, bucina, and bucinere are not related to bucca, hence some disapproved the spelling buccinator. Although the name bucinator is not derived from bucca, this muscle is also called musculus buccae or musculus buccalis in Latin and muscle of the cheek in English.
The first edition of Terminologia Anatomica, and preceding editions
dictate the spelling 'buccinator' with double 'c', with the exception of the Jena Nomina Anatomica, authorized in 1935, which writes 'musculus bucinatorius' with a single 'c'. The second edition of Terminologia Anatomica published in 2019 adopted the spelling 'bucinator' with a single 'c'.

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