Influence of voluntary teeth clenching on the stabilization of postural stance disturbed by electrical stimulation of unilateral lower limb

Studies on the relationship between dental occlusion and body balance have suggested that occlusion status contributes to the maintenance of postural balance. However, little has been reported about the effects of voluntary teeth clenching on the stabilization of postural stance in novel environments. In the present study we investigated whether teeth clenching influenced adaptation to the perturbation introduced by electrical stimulation of a unilateral lower limb. Subjects (12 adults) stood on a force plate, from which motion data were obtained in the horizontal plane with and without voluntary teeth clenching and were instructed to maintain the position throughout the experiment. We evoked a novel environment by supramaximal percutaneous electrical stimulation of the common peroneal nerve. Electromyograms (EMG) were recorded from the masseter and the peroneus longus (PL) muscles with bipolar surface cup electrodes. When the disturbed postural stance was generated by electrical stimulation, the maximum reaction force in the anterior–posterior (A/P) direction with teeth clenching (CL) was significantly smaller than that without voluntary teeth clenching (control; CO) (p<0.05) and the peak time of the ground reaction force/body mass (GRF/BM) in the A/P direction occurred earlier in the CL condition than CO (p<0.05). There were no significant differences in the peak-to-peak amplitude of GRF/BM and the peak time of GRF/BM, in the M/L direction under both CL and CO conditions.

Thus, the present study showed that voluntary teeth clenching contributed to stabilization of the postural stance perturbed transiently by electrical stimulation. We concluded that voluntary teeth clenching plays an important role in rapid postural adaptation to the anterior–posterior perturbation in the upright position.