Facial muscles (Human Anatomy): Image, Functions, Diseases and Treatments

Your facial muscles cooperate to govern the various facial features. Both eating and expressing facial emotions need them. Seek medical help if the muscles in your face become weak or paralysed. Facial palsy may be a symptom of a brief, treatable ailment, but it can also be an indication of a severe medical issue.

Nearly 20 flat skeletal muscles on your face connect to various parts of your skull. The ability to chew and produce facial emotions depend on the craniofacial muscles. They enter into your skin after coming from the fascia or the bone.Craniofacial muscles cooperate to regulate motions in your:

Cheekbones, chin, and ears (only in certain people) (only in some people), Eyebrows, eyelids, forehead, upper and lower lips, nostrils, and nose make up the face.

There are facial muscles all across your face. They may be grouped by broad geographic location:

• Your mouth's surrounding area and buccolabial muscles.
• Your nose's surrounding nasal muscles.
• Head, neck, and forehead epicranial muscles.
• Your ears' auricular muscles.
• muscles that surround your eyes in orbit.

Your face muscles provide two key functions:

Chewing (sometimes termed masticating), making facial gestures like a pout, a smile, or a surprised eyebrow raise.

The following face muscles are used while chewing:

• Buccinator muscles: A little muscle in your cheek called the buccinator maintains each cheek in place against your teeth.
• Pterygoid Muscle: The fan-shaped lateral pterygoid muscle aids in opening your mouth.
• Masseter muscle: A muscle that helps your jaw shut, the masseter, goes from each cheek to either side of your jaw.
• Pterygoid muscle: The medial pterygoid is a large muscle that aids in closing the jaw.
• Temporalis muscle: The fan-shaped muscle called the temporalis aids in closing your jaw.

The face expressive muscles are:

• Corrugator supercilii, a muscle that allows frowning, is located close to the eyebrow.
• Your chin's depressor anguli oris, which is on both sides, collaborates with other muscles to form a frown.
• Your chin's depressor labi inferioris muscle aids in controlling the motion of your lower lip.
• You may elevate your top lip and open your nostrils using Levator labii superioris alaeque nasi.
• The lower lip is controlled by the Mentalis muscles, which are located around the middle of your chin.
• You may flare your nostrils using nasalis.
• The muscle known as the occipitofrontalis, which runs from the top of the skull to the eyebrows, may make your forehead wrinkled and your brows furrow.
• Your eyelids are shut by the orbicularis oculi muscle. Your mouth's orbicularis oris, a ring of muscle that causes your lips to purse or contract,
• Procerus, a muscle that may make your nostrils flare and drag your brows downward between your brows. Your mouth's risorius, which is on either side, promotes smiling.
• You can grin thanks to the zygomaticus major and minor. The muscles in your face also serve the following purposes: assessing a person's appearance.
• Safeguarding your eyes also Keeping your mouth full with food and liquids (preventing drooling). Also performs functions of Talking, Singing, Whistling.

• Facial nerve palsy: It develops shortly after birth or that is present at birth is referred to as congenital facial nerve palsy. These include birth trauma, intrauterine position, intrauterine compression, and facial nerve nucleus aplasia.
• Moebius syndrome: It is a disorder that develops when the sixth and seventh cranial nerves, which control face expression and eye movement, are not completely developed at birth. The third, fifth, eighth, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth cranial nerves may also be affected.
• CHARGE syndrome: Due to the lack or underdevelopment of muscles at birth, people with Poland syndrome often have deformities on the afflicted side of their bodies at birth.
• Hemifacial microsomia: A disorder known as hemifacial microsomia (HFM) causes one side of the face to be undeveloped and to grow abnormally. It is often referred to as 'Goldenhar syndrome' or, less frequently, 'craniofacial microsomia.'
• Facial paralysis: A lack of function on one or both sides of the face is indicative of facial paralysis. Facial paralysis may be brought on by a variety of accidents, illnesses, and medical conditions, such as Bell's palsy, a brain tumour, or a stroke.
• Guillain-Barré syndrome: An acute inflammatory demyelinating episode is a hallmark of the peripheral neuron illness known as Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). It is less often than having one side affected by a facial nerve palsy to have both sides afflicted.
• Bell's palsy: Bell's palsy may affect one or both sides of the face and is brought on by swelling that pushes on the facial nerve. This generally makes forehead wrinkling absolutely difficult. Bell's palsy is a sudden, often temporary ailment.
• When the bacteria that cause the illness infiltrate the brain or spinal cord, Lyme disease symptoms appear in the nervous system. One or both sides of the face may droop or have facial palsy as a result of cranial nerve injury.
• Syndrome Ramsay-Hunt: Ramsay-Hunt syndrome, also called herpes zoster oticus, occurs when shingles injure a facial nerve near an ear. It causes rash, facial paralysis, and hearing loss in the affected ear. Slow-growing head and neck tumours may impair facial muscle function.
• Stroke: A cerebral blood vessel that gets blocked or bursts results in a stroke. It may result in an instantaneous paralysis or weakness of the face. Other symptoms include speech impairment, memory loss, mental disorientation, and paralysis on one side of the body. People who have had a stroke often still have the capacity to frown, in contrast to Bell's palsy.
• The face may seem droopy or drooping if the facial muscles are unable to correctly accept brain instructions.
• Some of the conditions which evolves facial paralysis (weakness), facial immobility (inability to move parts of the face).difficulty speaking, eating, or expressing facial emotions and Drooling etc.
• Symptoms can be seen All over your face or at a particular location which can be either the left or the right and also either the upper or lower half of face.

• Magnetic resonance imaging: During a brain MRI, the thickness of your skull as well as the length of your face and hearing nerves may be assessed. Depending on your particular symptoms, the MRI may also be used to examine the parotid (salivary) gland in the cheek. This approach may be used to identify the underlying cause if a patient's medical history is insufficient to diagnose facial palsy.
• Electrical nerve testing (neurophysiology): Electrical testing of the face nerves may be used to diagnose or treat your facial palsy. This will depend on the particulars of your symptoms and diagnosis, as well as the resources at your disposal. The quality of local service has a significant impact on whether or not you need to have an electrical inspection performed. The tests establish how well the facial nerve transmits electrical impulses and stimulates contraction of muscle fibres.
• Needle electromyography: The electrical activity of a muscle is measured and analysed using needle electromyography (EMG). The electrical impulses are recorded and examined for irregularities using a graph.
• Surface electrical myography: Physical therapists, speech therapists, and other rehabilitation specialists often use surface electrical myography (sEMG) to evaluate the function of the muscles. Electrodes are inserted during this surgery in key facial locations, including the brow, temples, cheek, chin, and neck. The next stage is to have the client practise making a variety of facial expressions.

• Rhytidectomy: Rhytidectomy, often known as a facelift, is a surgical operation intended to tighten the skin on the face and lessen the appearance of facial wrinkles.
• Rhinoplasty: often known as nose jobs or rhinoplasty, is a surgical treatment used to improve or change the look of the nose. Some individuals' desire to have rhinoplasty surgery is simply cosmetic in nature. Others could experience it as a consequence of a medical condition, such as asthma or a congenital heart defect.
• Lip augmentation: The purpose of lip augmentation is to provide the illusion of having larger lips. Dermal fillers injected into the lips are often used to improve lip volume, contour, or structure.

• Analgesics for relieving pain in the facial region: Aspirin, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen can relieve facial muscle inflammation and pain. Paracetamol and naproxen are analgesics.
• Antibiotics for infection of the facial muscles: Antibacterial treatment will be prescribed if the patient has an infection. Amoxicillin, ampicillin, penicillin are popular.
• Antibiotics for Mastitis And Rhinosinusitis: Some antibiotics, including such doxycycline, metronidazole, zithromax, clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, ceftriaxone, and zithromax, have adverse effects.
• Muscle relaxants for Facial Stiffness and Spasm: A specialist treating muscular stress may prescribe metaxalone, methocarbamol, orphenadrine, or carisoprodol.Steroids for Nasal Congestion: Anti-inflammatory steroid nasal sprays suppress steroid hormone release when sprayed into the nose. Anti-inflammatory drugs beclomethasone, budesonide, fluticasone.

If you see any facial paralysis or weakness, you should get medical help straight soon.

It might just be a brief episode of Bell's palsy or a curable illness. However, a medical professional should evaluate you only in case you have a more severe condition, such a tumour or stroke.