Figure 1. Schematic of the intrinsic tongue muscles.

Two 0.25cm thick sections of the tongue were collected from the anterior, middle, and posterior of the intrinsic tongue, centered at 0.25cm, 1cm, and 1.75cm from the tongue tip, respectively. Middle samples shown. Of each sample pair, one was sectioned coronally with the longitudinal muscles in cross section and the second sample was split and sectioned in the transverse plane with the verticalis muscle in cross section and midsagittal sections with the transverse muscle in cross section as shown.