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Updated: Oct 7, 2026
Meal Duration as a Measure of Orofacial Nociceptive Responses in Rodents
Published on: January 10, 2014
Temporomandibular disorders: MR assessment of inflammatory changes in the posterior disk attachment during the
1Department of Dental Radiology, Kagoshima University Dental School, Japan. suenaga@denta.hal.kagoshima-u.ac.jp
Purpose:
Our goal was to correlate the menstrual cycle with joint pain, MR evidence of the disk, and posterior disk attachment in patients with temporomandibular disorders.
Method:
Forty-two women underwent MRI involving conventional T1-and T2-weighted gadolinium-enhanced fat-suppressed SE imaging sequences.
Results:
There was a strong statistical difference in the degree of joint pain between proliferated phase and secretory phase groups (p < 0.005). Joint pain had a tendency to increase at the secretory phase. Significantly less contrast enhancement of the posterior disk attachment was observed in the proliferated phase than in the secretory phase (p < 0.001) or menstrual phase (p < 0.01). In addition, anterior disk displacement without reduction of the temporomandibular joint was closely associated with joint pain.
Conclusion:
Our results suggest that positional changes of the disk and the menstrual cycle may play a role in the degree of joint pain and inflammatory pathology of the posterior disk attachment.
