Clinical reports such as oral dyskinesia suggest the striatum plays a role in the control of the jaw and tongue movements. The present study aims to analyze discharge patterns of neurons in the putamen during mastication in the awake rabbit. For this purpose, we prepared chronic animals from which the discharges of the putamen neurons, EMGs of the masseteric and digastric muscles and also jaw movements were recorded simultaneously. The masticatory sequence were divided into three stages (I, IIa, and IIb) as reported previously (Morimoto et al. 1985). Some recorded neurons in the putamen discharged in relation to the sequence of mastication. Two different types of neural activity according to sequential stages of mastication were observed; one changed the firing rate during the stage I (the preparatory stage) and the other did throughout the mastication. These results suggest that the putamen plays a role in the regulation of masticatory sequence.