For a good understanding of what follows, read the “Why is reeducation for swallowing crucial” page?
Froggymouth: a simple atypical swallowing inhibitor
Froggymouth is positioned between the lips and keeps the lips from forming the airtight seal needed for atypical swallowing to occur. The tongue can no longer push up against the lips to swallow.
We say that Froggymouth acts as an atypical swallowing inhibitor.
Emotional shock
Once Froggymouth is positioned between the lips, the countdown begins – saliva builds up in the patient’s mouth, requiring them to find a way of swallowing the saliva for themselves without using atypical swallowing. The patient discovers secondary swallowing autonomously and spontaneously.
The need to swallow combined with the impossibility of using atypical swallowing causes a highly emotional state that does enroll the learning of this new swallowing method in the long-term memory. We say that secondary swallowing is now engrammed.
“A car accident, or a happy event such as your wedding, creates such an emotional state that you will remember every detail of it 5 or 10 years later without having to rerun the scene repeatedly in your mind,” Dr. Fellus.
The Froggymouth concept is based on the work of Eric Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2000, for his work on short- and long-term memory. He proved that 10 minutes a day is enough to engram a new program in the long-term memory when working on neural circuits involved in involuntary movements.
Instant engramming: Creation of New Synapses
Wearing FroggyMouth leads to a highly emotional state, caused by the total inhibition of sucking swallowing
This stress, coupled with the need to swallow as instructed by the brain stem, prompts the release of neurotransmitters.
These then set off a chain reaction in the next neuron, which relies on the activation of several molecules, including MAP kinase.
The downstream activation of these molecules creates a new neural extension.
At a cellular level, this process is repeated across all the neurons in the old pathway related to swallowing – new synapses and neural circuits are thus created.
We can describe this new pathway as anoetic since the patient’s conscious willpower is not required.
The FroggyMouth concept is unique since it is the only device offering quick, effective engramming of new behaviors through the use of emotional shock. The new technique facilitates the unconscious automatization of the new praxis.
