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Walk the Even Hospital Database by book and chapter — the raw source passages that ground Ask, DDx, and the rest.
1 passage
The tongue is a muscular organ formed by a complex arrangement of intrinsic and extrinsic muscles. Generally, the intrinsic muscles change the shape of the tongue, and the extrinsic muscles are in charge of moving it in different directions.[1] The tongue is principally involved in digestion, taste perception, and speech but also plays an important role in breathing.[1] It is attached via the extrinsic muscles to the hyoid bone, mandible, styloid process, soft palate, and pharynx and divided into two parts by the V-shaped sulcus terminalis. These two parts, an anterior two-thirds and a posterior one-third, are structurally and developmentally distinct. The foramen cecum at the apex of the sulcus terminalis indicates the site of embryonic origin of the thyroglossal duct.[2][3][4]