The Fürbringer hypothesis of nerve–muscle specificity reexamined with respect to the facial musculature

Abstract

Max Fürbringer's hypothesis of nerve–muscle specificity postulates that the connection between a muscle and its nerve supply is immutable throughout the course of ontogeny and phylogeny. This hypothesis has proven to have great heuristic value in determining muscle homologies, but exceptions are also known in which nerve supply is not constant. In the mammalian facial musculature, for example, the larger groups of muscles usually have a constant nerve supply, while the finer divisions of the preauricular group of muscles have a changeable nerve supply. Several instances are cited where one ramus of the facial nerve seems to have invaded the field of another. Nerve supply thus represents an excellent and useful, but by no means infallible, guide to muscle homologies.

Forelimb anatomy of new world monkeys: Myology and the interpretation of primitive anthropoid models

“…Considerable variation has also been reported in the nerve supply to flexor pollicis brevis in humans (St. John Brooks, 1886a;Day and Napier, 1961). Furthermore, since we are dealing with muscles that undergo superficial migrations at their origins (Cihak, 1969) and at the same time are located at the border between separate nerve supplies, reliance on innervation as a criterion for homology is particularly unwise (Haines, 1935;Straus, 1946b;Minkoff, 1974). Thus we conclude that one can again argue that the interosseous palmaris I of Henle in Cebus apella is the retention of a primitive condition, and that the loss of this head in most other haplorhines is derived.…”

Ontogenetic development of the shoulder joint muscles in frogs (Amphibia: Anura) assessed by digital dissection with implications for interspecific muscle homologies and nomenclature

“…The first criterion was mainly applied for the relative locations of the muscle attachment sites and the position of the muscle units to one another. The innervation was also considered as it has been proven useful for the identification and homologization of muscles (e.g., Romer 1924;Holliday and Witmer 2007) and because the branching pattern of the major nerves supplying the forelimb muscles seems to be rather conserved across tetrapods (Hirasawa and Kuratani 2018); yet, it should be noted that some studies (e.g., Cunningham 1890;Romer 1922;Haines 1935;Minkoff 1974) questioned the value of nerve supply for determining muscle homologies. Considering these previous reports on the usefulness of nerves for the determination of muscle homologies, we believed that the position of muscle units relative to major nerves is a reliable criterion to identify homologous muscle units if a common branching pattern was observed across species.…”