Influence Of The Treatment Of Bruxism With Splints On The Cerebral Blood Flow And The Saturation Of Cerebral Blood Oxygen

Bruxism is a non-physiological functional phenomenon of clenching or grinding teeth, which can cause serious teeth attrition, dentine hypersensitivity and dental pulp injury, and severe cases always associate with headache, fatigue of masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint disorder. Majority people support the point that psychological factors and occlusal factors are the main etiology. But the relationship of bruxism and central nervous system is not clear. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a generally technology for noninvasive brain monitoring, continuously monitor cerebral oximetry and hemodynamics, which can be used to examine brain function by many ways. In this study NIRS was first used to monitor the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen in the patients with bruxism before and after the treatment with splints, comparing with the control group. The changes of values of the two indices were discussed.Part I Evaluate the differences of the cerebral blood flow andthe saturation of cerebral blood oxygen between patientswith bruxism and normal individuals Objective: To observe the differences of the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen between patients with bruxism and normal individuals, and the different changes of the two indices will be discussed.Materials and Methods: 20 patients with bruxism and 20 normal individuals were selected randomly. The probe was set on the forehead , then mixing transmission intensity of local oxyhemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin can be tested by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and the local relative cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen in the cerebral cortex were calculated.Results: The cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen rised in control group when clenching, and the latter return to resting values when clenching finished after 30 s, while in the patients with bruxism only the cerebral blood flow rised and the increase amplitudes were less than the control group, and the cerebral blood flow returned to resting values when clenching finished, but no significant differences of the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen were seen before and after clenching.Conclusion: Variations of the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen in patients with bruxism are different from the normal individuals. Bruxism has harmful effects not only on teeth, masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint, but also on brain function.Part II Influence of the treatment of bruxism with splints on the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebralblood oxygenObjective: To evaluate the influence of the treatment of bruxism with splints on the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen.Materials and Methods: The 20 patients with bruxism from Part I were treated for one month with cuspid occlusal upheaving splints. Mixing transmission intensity of local oxyhemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin of the cerebral cortex were monitoring before and after treatment by near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), then the local relative cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen could be tested, then contrastive analysis of the datas and the normal individuals was made.Results: The cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen were increased after the treatment with cuspid occlusal upheaving splints when clenching, and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen returned to resting values when clenching finished after 30 s.Conclusion: The variations of the cerebral blood flow and the saturation of cerebral blood oxygen had a trend to be normal after the treatment with cuspid occlusal upheaving splint, which indicate that the brain function of patients with bruxism may be improved after the treatment with cuspid occlusal upheaving splints.