Department of Periodontology, Shanxi Province Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases Prevention and New Materials, Shanxi Medical University School and Hospital of Stomatology, No. 63, New South Road, Yingze District, Taiyuan, 030001, Shanxi, China.
Department of Nuclear Medicine and PET Center, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, 88 Jiefang Road, Hangzhou, 310009, Zhejiang, China.
Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2022 Jul;49(8):2716-2722. doi: 10.1007/s00259-022-05764-2. Epub 2022 Mar 19.
Toothache, a common disorder afflicting most people, shows distinct features at different clinical stages. This study aimed to depict metabolic changes in brain and investigate the potential mechanism involved in the aberrant affective behaviors during the natural process of toothache.
We investigated the spatiotemporal patterns of brain function during the natural course of toothache in a rat model of dental pulp injury (DPI) by using positron emission tomography (PET).
Glucose metabolism peaked on the 3rd day and gradually decreased in several brain regions after DPI, which was in line with the behavioral and histological results. PET imaging showed that visual pathway was involved in the regulation of toothache. Meanwhile, the process of emotional regulation underlying toothache was mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartic receptor subunit 2B (NR2B) in the caudal anterior cingulate cortex (cACC).
Our results revealed the spatiotemporal neurofunctional patterns during toothache process and preliminarily elucidated the role of NR2B in cACC in the regulation of toothache-related affective behaviors.
牙痛是一种常见的疾病，困扰着大多数人，在不同的临床阶段表现出不同的特征。本研究旨在描述大脑的代谢变化，并探讨在牙痛自然过程中异常情感行为涉及的潜在机制。
我们通过正电子发射断层扫描（PET）研究了牙髓损伤（DPI）大鼠模型中牙痛自然过程中大脑功能的时空模式。
DPI 后，几个脑区的葡萄糖代谢在第 3 天达到峰值，随后逐渐下降，这与行为学和组织学结果一致。PET 成像显示，视觉通路参与了牙痛的调节。同时，在尾侧前扣带皮层（cACC）中 N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸受体亚单位 2B（NR2B）介导了牙痛的情绪调节过程。
我们的研究结果揭示了牙痛过程中的时空神经功能模式，并初步阐明了 cACC 中 NR2B 在调节牙痛相关情感行为中的作用。
