Simple question.

 

When we talk to ourselves we are still using our voice box to some degree. Like when we read a book (Not Speed Reading) to really understand something we use the voice box even more. When we're pissed off about something we actually contract the muscles more still to the point discomfort and exhausting going over something in our head over and over again.

 

My question is does anyone know what muscles in the voice box are we actually using?

 

When we talk out aloud the Vocal Chords are actually being vibrated by certain muscles in the voice box not the by the nerves (I read that somewhere online that since 1950 Neurologist have ruled out that the vocal folds are directly controlled by a nerve). Does anybody know which muscle(s) do that?

 

Since those muscles actually control the vibration of the vocal folds then is it sufficient to suggest that those muscles can also vibrate/oscillate like the vocal folds only not as much?

 

I'm thinking that these muscles use the vocal folds like a pluck to a guitar string, but when we talk into ourselves like when focusing on something we are reading, are we actually oscillating those particular muscles but not the vocal folds?

 

Thanks

Barry

I've noticed upon research that the Tympanic membrane shares the Vagus Nerve as well as the Trigeminal Nerve and the Facial Nerve.

 

Could it be possible that the Tympanic Membrane shares a specific strand of the Vagus nerve allowing us to hear the signals we are sending to our voice box. I mean we send a signal to the voice box and it isn't until we breathe in and stimulate the voice box's muscles in a strong way we create speech, so when we talk to ourselves we are still using the muscles of the voice box but instead of the Vocal Folds vibrating could the Vagus nerve be sending the same signal to the Tympanic Membrane causing it to essentially vibrate allowing us to hear ourselves talk into ourselves?

 

When people suffer from total hearing loss due to say an explosion when on service in the Army they report that they can no longer hear themselves think like they used to. But their Voice Box is fine. Could that explain that yes we do send the same signal to our eardrum so we can hear what we say or think into ourselves?

Intrinsic laryngeal muscles:

 

Cricothyroid - tenses the vocal cord.

Thyroarytenoid - relaxes the vocal cord.

Posterior cricoarytenoid - abducts the vocal cords to open the rima glottidis.

Lateral cricoarytenoid - adducts the vocal cords to close the rima glottidis.

Oblique and transverse arytenoid muscles - helps to close the rima glottidis.

FWIW, when I talk to myself I'm not doing it out loud. It's pretty much all in my head.