Participants
Ciara Mason
Treatments for toothache (pulpitis) are commonly ineffective leaving patients in continuing pain. Exploring the exact cause of toothache is vital to finding better treatment options. Toothache could be reconceptualised as a ‘nerve injury’ rather than an infective or inflammatory condition. This experiment investigated c-Fos expression, a neuronal activation marker, in the trigeminal tract of 15 rat brain stems using immunohistochemistry. The rats were grouped into sham (n=6) and pulpitis (n=6) and measured at time points 2 hours or 48 hours alongside a positive control group (n=3). At 2 hours, pulpitis rats showed c-Fos expression which indicated the toothache had activated the neurons. At 48 hours, pulpitis rats also expressed c-Fos which indicated the toothache still activated the neurons. This suggested that toothache is caused by neuronal damage rather than inflammation alone. Therefore a more suitable treatment for toothache could be found.
Funded by: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Project Supervisors: Mr David Edwards and Dr Ilona Obara