Plastic surgeons from China this week presented a new approach to performing facial reanimation procedures to their American counterparts at the ASPS conference in Seattle.

The new treatment involves harvesting muscles and nerves from a patient’s stomach wall and transferring it to the side of the face to inhibit jaw movement. The procedure may improve facial expressions for people who’ve experienced facial paralysis, bells palsy, stroke, or trauma. Better functional and aesthetic outcomes may be achieved with the procedure over current protocols.

[Source: ASPS]