Objective assessment of actual chewing side by measurement of bilateral masseter muscle electromyography

•EMG activities from the bilateral masseter muscles on chewing foods were measured.•The chewing side was judged from the level of EMG amplitude on each stroke.•The accuracy and reproducibility of determination of chewing side were recognized.•The method may be useful for the objective determination of actual chewing side.

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to examine the validity of objective assessment of actual chewing side by measurement of electromyographic (EMG) activity of the bilateral masseter muscles upon chewing test foods.DesignThe sample consisted of 19 healthy, dentate individuals. The subjects were asked to chew three types of test foods (peanuts, beef jerky, and chewing gum) for 10 strokes on the right side and then on the left side, and instructed to perform maximum voluntary clenching for 3 s, three times. EMG activity from the bilateral masseter muscles was recorded. The data were collected in three different days. The root mean square EMG amplitude obtained from the maximum clenching task was used as the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). Then, the level of amplitude against the MVC (%MVC) was calculated for the right and left sides on each stroke. The side with the larger %MVC value was judged as the chewing side, and the concordance rates (CRs) for the instructed chewing side (ICS) and the judged chewing side (JCS) were calculated. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of the CRs were calculated to evaluate the reproducibility of the method.ResultsHigh CRs between the ICS and JCS for each test food were recognized. There were significant ICCs for beef jerky (R = 0.761, P < 0.001) and chewing gum (R = 0.785, P < 0.001).ConclusionsThe results suggested that the measurement of EMG activity from the bilateral masseter muscles may be a useful method for the objective determination of the actual chewing side during mastication.