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Cortical Activation Resulting from Painless Vibrotactile Dental Stimulation Measured by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

¹ Center for Dental and Oral Medicine and Cranio-maxillofacial Surgery, Clinic for Masticatory Disorders and Complete Dentures, ³ University Hospital Balgrist and ⁴ Institute of Neuropsychology, University of Zürich, Plattenstrasse 11, CH-8028 Zürich, Switzerland; ² Department of Surgery, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA; and ⁵ Institute of Biomedical Engineering, ETH & University of Zürich, Switzerland;

^* corresponding author, ettlin{at}zzmk.unizh.ch

There have been few investigations on hemodynamic responses in the human cortex resulting from dental stimulation. Identification of cortical areas involved in stimulus perception may offer new targets for pain treatment. This initial study aimed at establishing a cortical map of dental representation, based on non-invasive fMRI measurements. Five right-handed subjects were studied. Eight maxillary and 8 mandibular teeth were stimulated after the vibratory perception threshold was determined for each tooth. Suprathreshold stimulation was repeated thrice per session, in a total of three sessions performed on three consecutive days. Statistical inference on cluster level identified increased blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal during vibratory dental stimulation, primarily in the insular cortex bilaterally and in the supplementary motor cortex. No significant brain activation was observed in the somatosensory cortex with this stimulation protocol. These results agree with previous findings obtained from invasive direct electrical cortical stimulation of the human insula.

KEY WORDS: cerebral cortex/anatomy and histology • echo-planar imaging/methods • tooth • physical stimulation/methods • perception/physiology

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