Soft Palate: What is it? Anatomy, Function and Pathologies

soft is the posterior region of the palate.

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Unlike the hard palate (ie the anterior region of the palate), the soft palate is devoid of the bony component, but is equipped with an "important set of muscles (including the tensor of the velum palatine, the m. Palatoglossus, the m. . palato-pharyngeal, the levator levator palatine veil and the uvula muscle).
The soft palate borders on: the hard palate, anteriorly; the nasopharynx, posteriorly; the oropharynx, inferiorly; the nasal cavities and the entrance to the Eustachian tube, superiorly.
The soft palate has both a "sensory innervation and a" motor innervation (which is used to control the aforementioned muscles).
The soft palate contributes to correct swallowing and, during phonation, guarantees the emission of velar consonants.
Cleft palate deserves a mention among the most well-known pathologies that can affect the soft palate.

, muscle tissue and mucous tissue, the palate can be divided into two regions: an anterior region, which is equivalent to the aforementioned hard palate, and a posterior region, which corresponds to the topic of this article, namely the soft palate.

Although hardly distinguishable to the eye, the hard and soft palates are quite different from each other; under the mucosa covering common to both, in fact, the hard palate has a bony component, which in the soft palate is completely absent and replaced, in a certain sense, by a component of a muscular nature.

, i.e. the empty space that connects the nasal cavity to the oral cavity.

The vertical portion of the soft palate, on the other hand, is a sort of prominence oriented towards the floor of the oral cavity, with a concave aspect in the initial part and convex in the terminal part, which culminates with an anatomical element certainly known to most: the "uvula.