Soft palate

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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.

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 should have holes forming that function during speech to separate the oral cavity (mouth) from the nose, in order to produce the oral speech sounds. If this separation is incomplete, air escapes through the nose during speech and the speech is perceived as hypernasal.

Muscles of soft palate

Muscle	Action	Nerve
levator veli palatini	deglutition	cranial root of accessory nerve
tensor veli palatini	deglutition	mandibular nerve
palatoglossus	respiration	cranial root of accessory
palatopharyngeus	respiration	cranial root of accessory
musculus uvulae	moves uvula	cranial root of accessory

Additional images

See also

• Hard palate
• Palate
• Tonsil
• Palatine uvula

External links

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

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Last updated on Monday March 10, 2008 at 14:07:22 PDT (GMT -0700)
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