Dentist in Clearwater Explains the Difficulty in Identifying Which Tooth Has the Ache

Online, September 20, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Our brain does not choose when it comes to toothache. New studies reveal that for the brain, the pain we feel both in the upper and lower tooth is pretty much the same. Dentist in Clearwater explains why patients find it hard to distinguish and pinpoint the toothache.

All of us being humans are prone to pain. Distinguishing a cut between the index finger and the thumb is easily deciphered and understood by the brain. But things can get more difficult when it comes to the mouth, depending on the intensity of the pain or toothache.

Most dentists, if not all, agree that they don't know much about tooth pain. There seems to be a puzzle in addressing toothache localization, although modern studies and technology in dentistry begin to slowly address the dilemma.

Dental researchers in Germany analyzed brain activity in some healthy volunteers as they experienced tooth pain. The researchers gave short electrical pulses to either the upper left canine tooth (the pointy one) or the lower left canine tooth in the subjects. A painful sensation was felt similar to what we feel when biting an ice cube as these bursts of electrical stimulation were delivered to the subjects. Volunteers rated the pain to about 60 percent, with 100 percent being the worst pain.

Researchers used fMRI to understand how the brain reacts to pain coming from different teeth and to monitor changes in activity both in the upper and lower tooth. According to the researchers, many brain regions responded to top and bottom tooth pain pretty much the same way, carried by signals from two distinct branches of a fiber called the trigeminal nerve.

The researchers also found that different regions in the cerebral cortex, namely the somatosensory cortex, the insular cortex and the cingulate cortex, all behaved the same way for both toothaches. Such brain regions are known to play important roles in the pain projection system, yet findings showed no major differences between the two toothaches. The activation was more or less the same, although their experiments might have missed subtle differences that could account for why some tooth pain can be localized.

Because both regions were active in both toothaches, the subject volunteers find it hard to distinguish where the pain was emanating from. For physiological and anatomical reasons, dentists should be aware that patients will not always able to locate the pain. And the difficulty is what both the dentist and patient experience in the clinic.

Dental researchers and scientists agree, however, that available technology cannot solve the puzzle in localizing pain and toothache at the moment, and being able to understand the pathway from tooth to brain may help them devise better treatments for acute tooth pain, such as cavities or infections, and more-chronic conditions.

Patients in Clearwater Florida are highly advised to see a dentist in Clearwater to help educate patients in the seriousness of a toothache. Whether you need a cosmetic dentist, general dentist, family dentist or advance treatment and dental implant, Dentist in Clearwater Florida provides dental services and oral facility that can relieve toothache pain emergencies. Get affordable and fast tooth ache relief.