Dr Anthony Speed
Information sheet from www.speedental.com.au
Pain: We can't tell the difference between a painful upper and painful lower teeth
In a recently published study German scientists have found that in healthy volunteers, the brain activity from a painful stimulus on upper and lower left canine teeth resulted in brain activity that could not distinguish whether the impulse came from an upper or lower tooth.
The nerves for the upper and lower teeth are two distinct branches of the trigeminal nerve so researchers had expected to be able to notice differences in brain activity using functional resonance imaging(fMRI).
The lead researcher - Prof Clemens Forster of the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany commented that "Dentist should be aware that patients aren't always able to locate the pain" and the study help demonstrate that there were physiological and anatomincal reasons for that.