Tongue-Tie and Pupillometry: Diect access to the brain?

In the last few years, in neuroscience, a new means of investigating brain activity has emerged: pupillometry. We all know that during daylight, pupils modify their diameters, adapting to the amount of light and reducing or increasing their sizes to achieve perfect vision. This is a very complicated mechanism, mediated by parasympathetic (miosis, diameter reduced) and sympathetic (mydriasis, larger size) autonomic system pathways, and the response is not always symmetrical.

But what happens in the dark? We could assume that the diameters reach the greatest, symmetrical opening, but it is not so. Without the need to adapt to the light, the real, basic mechanism is revealed. Hidden in the brainstem, two lentils lie, one per side, a little bunch of neurons that are the real mainframe of the Central Nervous System (CNS). They are the Locus Coeruleus Nuclei (LC). They are the site of production of Noradrenaline, the neuromodulator that boosts the entire CNS. It has direct synapses with the Trigeminal Nerve, and its effects arrive everywhere in the body. The activities of the two nuclei must be as symmetrical as possible. An asymmetry could lead to a degenerative disease of the CNS, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or even worse. The first great discovery was that pupils’ size is directly and immediately connected with the discharge of noradrenaline by LC, so through its measurement we can know how balanced the activity of the brain is. Until a few years ago, LC’s activity seemed to be unmodifiable. The second revolutionary discovery was that the mouth can alter it, making it asymmetrical or symmetrical in two ways: teeth contact, via the trigeminal nerve directly, and swallowing, via cervical muscle contraction, the vestibular system and, again, the trigeminal nerve.

The hypothesis was to investigate through a pupillometer, a device with two infrared cameras connected to a measurement app, if tongue-tie could represent a restriction in LC activation, and, above all, if its release could lead to symmetry. Given 0,1mm the maximum gap allowed between the two pupils' diameters, all patients in this study were asymmetrical at the beginning (i.e.,> 0,1mm), and all of them became symmetrical at the end, some of whom reached even 0,0 mm of difference. Our results show that after release and correctly performed Myofunctional Therapy for at least 6 months, brain activity symmetry can be achieved and that the results are stable over time, and this opens a new level of studying the effects provided by tongue-tie release.