Alexandria, VA, USA - 2019 marks the Centennial of the Journal of Dental Research (JDR). Over the last century the JDR has been dedicated to the dissemination of new knowledge and information on all sciences relevant to dentistry and to the oral cavity and associated structures in health and disease. To celebrate, the JDR is featuring a yearlong, commemorative article and podcast series that highlights topics that have transformed dental, oral and craniofacial research over the past 100 years.
When the first issue of the JDR was published, the field of neuroscience did not exist but over subsequent decades neuroscience has emerged as a scientific field that has particular relevance to dentistry. In the JDR Centennial article "The Evolution of Neuroscience as a Research Field Relevant to Dentistry," Koichi Iwata, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan and Barry Sessle, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada review many of the novel insights that have been gained through neuroscience research into the neural basis of these functions and their clinical relevance to the diagnosis and management of pain and sensorimotor disorders.
"Neuroscience is relevant to dentistry as many neurally-based functions, such as pain, taste, chewing, swallowing and salivation, are manifested in the orofacial area and disorders of these functions are quite common," said Iwata. He also noted that "neuroscience research has resulted in greater understanding of these functions. Novel insights have been gained of the neural pathways and brain circuitry underlying each of these functions and also of the role of nonneural and neural processes and their plasticity in modulating these functions, in adaptation to tissue injury and pain and in the learning of or rehabilitation of orofacial functions. The mechanisms underlying the articulation of the teeth are also an ongoing and future neuroscience research target."
Sessle added that "given the expanded interest in this field in recent decades and further technological advances undoubtedly to be made in molecular biology, genetics, artificial intelligence, etc., the future holds much promise for further insights into mechanisms underlying these functions and into related processes that account for disorders of these functions. These mechanistic insights will undoubtedly have clinical application in dentistry by enhancing diagnosis and management relevant to disorders affecting these functions."