Bruxism of bruxism. Clenching the teeth is generally displayed by humans and other animals as a display of anger, hostility or frustration. It is thought that in humans, clenching the teeth may be an evolutionary instinct to display teeth as weapons, thereby threatening a rival or a predator. The phrase "to grit one's teeth" is the grinding or clenching of the teeth in anger, or to accept a difficult or unpleasant situation and deal with it in a determined way. In the Bible there are several references to "gnashing of teeth" in both the Old Testament, and the New Testament, where
Bruxism then observed high levels of bruxism-like muscular activity in rats that were allowed to watch this treatment compared to rats that did not see it. They proposed that the rats who witnessed the electrical shocking of other rats were under emotional stress which may have caused the bruxism-like behavior. Some research suggests that there may be a degree of inherited susceptibility to develop sleep bruxism. 21–50% of people with sleep bruxism have a direct family member who had sleep bruxism during childhood, suggesting that there are genetic factors involved, although no genetic markers have yet been identified. Offspring of people