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Introduction
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What’s up, meditay here and in this video, we’re going to go through the different
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salivary glands you have around the oral cavity. So the salivary glands are divided based on their
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size. There are the minor salivary glands, that are scattered throughout the oral cavity,
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and there’s the major salivary glands, which has ducts that open into the oral cavity
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to secrete out its saliva. But first, we need to address some words I’m gonna use
Saliva
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throughout this video so that you understand the whole idea regarding salivary glands
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Our saliva is made up two components. There’s a serous component, and there’s a mucous component.
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The serous component contains enzymes that help us digest the food we eat.
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And the mucous component is mucous, that lubricates the inner surfaces of our mouth,
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as well as lubricating the food we eat so that it passes easily down to the
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next step of the digestive system. And these two components are produced by two different glands.
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They’re the Serous gland, and the mucous gland, so let’s go through these a little bit.
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The serous gland looks like this. It contains a lot of granules that produces watery secretions
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containing enzymes like alpha amylase. Mucous glands look like this. They stain
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lighter than the serous gland because they don’t have these granules that the serous gland does,
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and it mainly produces mucin, that absorbs water to form a lubricating secretion called mucus.
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Then there’s a combination of those, called seromucous gland, which look like this.
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That produces both mucous and enzymes. Alright. Now that you have a general
Minor Salivary Glands
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knowledge of the different glands. Let’s start with the minor salivary glands. The
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minor salivary glands are scattered throughout the oral cavity. And they produce saliva continuously,
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without any neuronal stimulation. The majority of those are gonna be seromucous glands.
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There are minor salivary glands in the lips. Called labial glands.
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There are glands in the buccal region,
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called buccal glands. Then there’s the Palatine glands,
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and lingual glands. These are the main minor salivary glands that we have in the oral cavity.
Major Salivary Glands
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Then we have the Major Salivary Glands, which look like this. They are the Parotid Gland,
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Submandibular gland, and the sublingual glands. Cool. Let’s start with the parotid gland!
Parotid Gland
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Which is this one. Now there are three things that I want you to remember
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when it comes to the parotid gland. One: Is that it’s the largest salivary gland you have.
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Two is that it contains purely serous glands. Meaning that it doesn’t have any mucous glands,
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not seromucous glands. Its main function is to produce watery secretion containing enzymes. And
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three. That it’s located on the lateral surface of the head, ventral to the auricle, as you see here.
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Cool. So the parotid gland consists of a superficial part, as you see here. It lies
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between the zygomatic arch and the angle of the mandible. Then the gland is going to turn around
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the mandible, to reach the inner surface, and that part is called the deep part, which lies in the
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retromandibular fossa. And keep in mind that the parotid gland is covered by a fascia
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called the parotid fascia, which is a fascia that fuses with the masseter fascia anteriorly.
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When the parotid fascia produces its serous secretion, it’s going to send
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them through a duct called the parotid duct, or sometimes also referred to as the Stensen duct.
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And this duct is going to open here at the upper side of the cheeks. And the opening
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of the parotid duct has papilla around it, called papilla of the parotid duct. And here
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just to help you visualize it. This circle is the opening of the parotid duct into the oral cavity;
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and this is the papilla, which are small elevations around the parotid opening.
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Above the parotid duct, you’ll find a small gland called the accessory parotid gland
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which also assists in producing saliva. Next, we have the submandibular glands,
Submandibular Gland
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which are these ones highlighted in yellow. The submandibular gland contains seromucous
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glands, meaning that they produce both digestive enzymes, as well as mucin
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that goes together with water to produce mucus. It lies in the submandibular space, as you se here.
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So it lies mainly under the mylohyoid muscle,
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but parts of the gland actually curves around the posterior end of this muscle,
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and ends up in the sublingual space. It has a duct called the submandibular duct,
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or sometimes also referred to as Wharton’s duct, which opens up in the middle of the floor of the
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oral cavity, in an elevation called the sublingual caruncle. So that’s the submandibular gland.
Sublingual Gland
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Then we have the sublingual gland. And the sublingual gland is located
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in the sublingual space, as you see here. This is the sublingual gland.
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The anterior part of the gland is seromucous, and the posterior part of the gland is purely mucous.
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Now the sublingual gland is special in that it has two types of ducts.
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It has the major sublingual duct; or duct of Bartholin, which joins with the submandibular
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duct to open up in the sublingual caruncle. And it also has Minor sublingual ducts, which open up as
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small holes within the sublingual folds. And that was a video about the salivary glands.
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