Anatomy of a facial muscle blog

I created this site when I was just a little ol' speech language pathology grad student at UT Austin, taking a Speech Anatomy class with Dr. Kiran. She demonstrated a lot of these facial expressions, and I took notes. In an effort to not flunk (I was going through grad school while raising my daughter, who was one year old at the time), I had to translate it into some visual learning. Much to my surprise, this blog has received lots and lots of traffic. Mostly from googling various facial muscles. But maybe they click on my picture because I'm so hawt. Knock yourselves out, grad students, and remember - It Gets Better.

Good find

This dude going over the muscles on a model.

Platysma...

...is that weird stringy-looking muscle there on my neck. You use it when you are suddenly surprised and also to lower your mandible.

Depressor anguli oris...

...depresses the lower lip and also compresses them by drawing them closer together.

Mentalis muscle...

...protudes lower lip for pouting and for drinking.





It's pure vodka.

Levator anguli oris

...draws corner of mouth upward. More upward than that risorius muscle.

Zygomatic major

makes you smile real big. Like, psychotically big.