Soft palate

The soft palate (or velum, or muscular palate) is the soft tissue constituting the back of the roof of the mouth. The soft palate is distinguished from the hard palate at the front of the mouth in that it does not contain bone.

Function

It is movable, consisting of muscle fibers sheathed in mucous membrane, and is responsible for closing off the nasal passages during the act of swallowing, and is also responsible for closing off the airway.

The soft palate's motion during breathing is responsible for the sound of snoring. Touching the soft palate evokes a strong gag reflex in most people.

The soft palate retracts and elevates during speech to separate the oral cavity (mouth) from the nasal cavity in order to produce the oral speech sounds. If this separation is incomplete, air escapes through the nose, causing the speech to be perceived as hyper nasal. While sneezing it protects nasal passage by diverting a part of substance to be thrown out to mouth.

Muscles of soft palate

Muscle	Action	Nerve
levator veli palatini	deglutition	Vagus nerve via pharyngeal plexus
tensor veli palatini	deglutition	mandibular nerve
palatoglossus	respiration	Vagus nerve via pharyngeal plexus
palatopharyngeus	respiration	Vagus nerve via pharyngeal plexus
musculus uvulae	moves uvula	Vagus nerve via pharyngeal plexus

Additional images

See also

• Hard palate
• Palate
• Tonsil
• Palatine uvula

External links

• Image at WebMD
• - "Diagram of the regions of the oral cavity."