The palatoglossus muscles form the anterior tonsillar pillars which lie anterior to the palatine tonsils so are easily visualized by looking in a properly illuminated throat. As they run from their origin in the palatine aponeurosis to the insertion in the tongue it forms a curtain of tissue which as a continuation from the posterior border of the soft palate defines the posterior extent of the oral cavity.
This muscle acts to lift the tongue towards the palate while simultaneously lowering the soft palate towards the tongue. This is important to help force food into the pharynx. Like all of the other palatal muscles except the tensor veli palatini it is innervated by branches of the vagus nerve found in the pharyngeal plexus.īecause it is also a tongue muscle it is often grouped with them also but here to lessen redundancy we will assume you will remember that and we will not cover it again. One reason to put it here is that its innervation follows palatal patterns while all the other tongue muscles in that group are innervated by the hypoglossal nerve(cranial nerve XII).ĭespite the way the name sounds the muscle of the uvula is a pair of muscles that originate in the posterior hard palate and insert in the palatine aponeurosis and the soft tissue of the uvula. The uvula can be shortened by contracting the pair or deviated to one side or the other by contracting just one of them. It is innervated by the pharyngeal plexus of nerves. The superior pharyngeal constrictor muscle is broad muscle with a long origin that runs from the mandible inferiorly up the pterygomandibular raphe to the pterygoid hamulus of the sphenoid bone.
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