On the Physiology of Normal Swallowing as Revealed by Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Real Time

Figure 1

Physiological events of normal swallowing as seen by real-time MRI (27-year-old female). LAT: laryngeal ascent, VCT: velo-pharyngeal closure, OOT: oro-velar opening (start time defined as reference), PTT: pharyngeal transit, GCT: glottal closure, SFT: vallecular and piriform sinus filling, ERT: epiglottic retroflexion, PCT: pharyngeal constriction, EOT: esophageal opening, LDT: laryngeal descent (“s” and “e” refer to respective start and end times). The images are selected from respective movies (see Supplementary Movie 1 in the Supplementary Material available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/493174) at a resolution of 41.2 ms (24.3 frames per second) and sorted according to their temporal onset from top left to bottom right. For further details see text.