O-23
Development of biometric system for measurement of swallowing motion during drinking
Presenter: Hidetoshi Kojima, Sapporo Breweries Ltd., Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan
Co-Authors: Hirotaka Kaneda and Masachika Takashio, Sapporo Breweries Ltd., Yaizu, Shizuoka, Japan; and Ai Murayama and Toyohiko Hayashi, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan

Swallowing is a serial movement of the mouth and throat for carrying food or beverage from the oral cavity to the stomach, which is achieved by coordinative activities of the masticatory and pharyngeal muscles. Along with this movement, the larynx pumps up and down. Movement of the oral and pharyngeal organs during swallowing has been generally studied by using video-fluoroscopy. This method, however, has a defect of invasiveness, due to X-ray exposure. Then, we developed a non-invasive biometric system for evaluating swallowing motion during drinking in an attempt to understand the features of beer brands. The system can measure larynx movement, an electromyogram (EMG) of suprahyoid (upper pharyngeal) musculature, and swallowing sounds simultaneously, employing pressure sensors, EMG electrodes, and microphones, respectively, all mounted on the throat surface. All electrosignals were fed into a PC through an AD converter. As analytic parameters, we used the period of the larynx heave, EMG of the suprahyoid musculature, and the intervals of the swallowing sound, and compared them between several beer brands with different throat sensation features during drinking. Ten healthy male volunteers participated in this study as subjects. The swallowing motions during successive drinking of each brand were recorded for nearly 10 seconds. Analytic results of the parameters coincided well with the sensory evaluation, suggesting that our biometric system could objectively evaluate throat sensations during drinking beers.

Hidetoshi Kojima is a biochemist at the Advanced Technology Laboratory in the Frontier Laboratories of Value Creation, Sapporo Breweries Ltd. He graduated from Tokyo University in 1999 with an M.S., and then joined Sapporo Breweries, Ltd. He has been engaged in the research of antioxidants in barley and the application of the electronic nose and taste sensor. He has recently worked on the development of a biometric system for measurement of swallowing motion during drinking.