Photos of the Mandible Bone

The mandible bone is a large bone on the human face. It is connected to the other facial bones through the temporal mandibular joint. Its main function includes holding the face in its shape, providing bed for teeth, participating in chewing and speech, protecting the facial organs etc.

    
Photo of human mandible bone. The bone surface is not even and the shape is not regular. Both side of the bone are not symmetric.

    
3D CT images of the human mandible bone. They look like the real bone in shape only some of the details have been ignored during the image reconstruction.

The shape of the mandible is irregular. No one’s mandible bone looks like the others. No mandible bone is completely symmetric. However the mandible is a perfect product of the prolonged human evolutions. Its unique shape serve its function very well.

The mandible bone itself is strong matching the protection function for the facial organs. Its arched form plus the free ends at both side of the temporal mandibular joint facilitate its anti impact nature and velocity absorption character. The anti depression scale of the mandible bone depends on the compliance of the bone and the direction of the depression force. A dense stress bone line pass through the mandible body, like the stress frame of a building, making the mandible bone strong and tough. The size and thickness of the mandible bone have little contribution to its strengthening.  Reduction of the mandible bone by surgery or injury will not harm the strength of the bone unless this stress line is damaged.

Many reasons, such as developing abnormality, injury, surgery and tumor etc, can cause the shape of the human mandible bone shifted from normal, even cause severe deformity. The most frequent deformities on the mandible bone include underbite, overbite and asymmetry. The overgrowth of the mandible bone is the common cause of the underbite deformity. In this situation the mandible bone is too big and too long compared to the maxilla and a malocclusion normally accompany. Undergrowth of the mandible bone make a small chin and small jaw, micrognathia is present in this circumstances. Unbalanced growth of the mandible bone cause mandible asymmetry. Overgrowth of the maxillary and mandible bone form a bimaxillar protrusion look.