Journal of Dental Research, Vol 66, 799-801, Copyright © 1987 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals
The effect of rate of increase of electrical current on the sensation thresholds of teeth
M. H. Abdel Wahab and J. G. Kennedy
The effect of the rate of increase of electrical current during stimulation
of human teeth was examined on clinically sound upper anterior teeth. The
teeth were stimulated with a current of 10 msec duration at a frequency of
50 Hz. Eight different rates of current increase were used, viz.: 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 mu a/sec. The results showed that there was a linear
relationship between the sensation threshold and the rate of current
increase, and that the threshold increased significantly as the rate of
current rise increased. Slowly increasing current gave more accurate and
reproducible results than did rapidly increasing current, and a rate of 2
mu a/sec was found to be appropriate for clinical pulp-testing.
