The innervation of the teeth in the albino rat with some observations on the finer structure of the dental pulp

Abstract

THREE PLATES (FIFTEEN FIGURES)Since the time of Boll in 1868 the problem of the innervation of the teeth has been a moot one. The controversy centers about whether nerve fibers from the dental pulp enter the dentin o r are confined solely to the pulp. Other differences concern the course, relationship to the adontoblasts, and mode of termination of the nerve fibers.Technique seems largely responsible for the discrepancies in the results of the different investigators. Various methods for the impregnation of nerves which give excellent results with other tissues are found to be capricious when applied to teeth. It is not unlikely that decalcification often renders the nerves in teeth less acceptable to impregnation with reduced silver and gold. Also, many investigators have confined their studies entirely to human teeth, which not always being in the best of condition are further complicated in having many nerves.Because the extensive literature on this subject has been reviewed adequately, an historical survey is unnecessary. More recent reviews include those of Windle ( '34), van der Sprenkel ( '35) and Brashear ( '37).Entering into a study of the innervation of teeth without prescience, the purpose is to see whether with a large number of teeth from easily obtainable animals of known ages, some

A fine‐structural survey of the pulpal innervation in the rat mandibular incisor

“…The present study supports the light-microscopic work by Bernick (1956) and Hattyasy (1956Hattyasy ( , 1959 and the electrophysiology of Jiffry and Matthews (1977) and Jiffry (1978a, b). Reports claiming the presence of myelinated fibers have either provided no evidence (Ridehalgh and Stewart, 1938;Weatherford, 1939;Sakai, 1974) or appear to have resulted from misinterpretation of supravitally stained endothelium in blood vessels (Scheinin and Light, 1969a,b, see p. 305 and 69b, their Figs. 4 and 5).…”

“…14). Reports claiming that odontoblasts are innervated (Weatherford, 1939;Sakai, 1974;Zajicek, 1976) lack supporting evidence. However, on this matter the studies of Wasserman (19391, Bernick (19561, Hattyasy (1956, 1959 and Byers and Kish (1976) are supported by the present work.…”

“…Previous reports on the histological approach to this problem have presented either very little illustrative evidence (Weatherford, 1939;Hattyasy, 1956Hattyasy, ,1959Bernick, 1956;Byers and Kish, 1976) or none a t all (Ridehalgh and Stewart, 1938;Wasserman, 1939;Pohto and Antila, 1968a;Sakai, 1974). The inconsistency of many of the observations and conclusions made may be explained in part by the limiting resolving power of the light microscope.…”

The Morphology of Receptors of the Tooth

“…He considered them to be sim ilar to the nerve cells described in the dental pulp of adult man. Many authors argue against the evidence presented by M ummery and doubt the nervous origin of cells and fibres described by him (Stewart ] 1927(Stewart ] , 1928, Bradlaw [ ], Weatherford [1939.…”