Morphometric analysis of human mastication

Motor activity studies usually involve analyzing behavior characteristics t hat are easily observed and scored. The advantage of these methods is that behavioral variation can be rapidly assayed. The disadvantage is that consi derable behavioral information is lost. At the other extreme are descriptiv e kinematic studies that provide detailed quantification of behavior charac teristics. The disadvantage of these descriptive studies has been the time- intensive nature of data acquisition and analysis. Recent technological adv ances provide means for scoring and analyzing many motor activity character istics simultaneously without a significant increase in scoring and analysi s time. The methods described in this paper provide an expeditious means of preserving the richness of motor activity for experimental and clinical ne urobehavioral research purposes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.