Like when we try to spit, a small puddle of saliva instantly comes into out mouths before it is spit out.
In: Biology
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Saliva is a very important thing for your oral health, speech, and eating. As such, your body is CONSTANTLY producing it to make sure your mouth stays moist for proper function.
There are 3 sets of salivary glands: two each of the Parotid (in the back of your throat, produces about half of the saliva), submandibular (below your mouth, between the jawbones), and sublingual (under your tongue; you can actually see the ducts for these if you pull your tongue back).
By putting pressure on these glands, you can squeeze the saliva out of them and into your mouth.
If you’ve heard of Pavlov and his dogs, by conditioning his dogs every time he rang a bell when food presented to them, he eventually had them salivate on command by ringing the bell and no food present.
We associate producing saliva to other activities with the other thoughts and triggers we have. With spitting, as little kids we see others do it, and we try to do it and over time we build up that conditioning to bring producing saliva out on command to the act we want (eating, spitting, licking our lips, etc).
Lift your left leg.. you just… did it, right? Same thing. It’s a functional response we possess like blinking. We have saliva glands, and when we anticipate food or need moisture, our body secretes it.
We control our bodies through various means but primarily electrical impulses sent to the portion of the body that needs the action. The part of the brain that controls those gets a signal via external stimuli and boom your mouth is watering when you want to.
Our saliva is produced and stored in saliva pocket in our mouths. Same way the snake containing its poison. When we need subconscious or conscious, our muscles will squeeze it out.
There’s a demo we use is HS bio class. Read all the steps before you start!
1. Stick out your tongue and bite down. You should have about an inch of flesh in front of your teeth, and bite hard enough you can feel the pressure and a bit of pain, not agony or damage
2. Hold for 10-15 seconds
3. Release your bite – you’ll feel a rush of saliva coming from the glands behind your lower front teeth
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