Automated biometrics-based personal identification of the Hunter-Schreger bands of dental enamel

The use of automated biometrics-based personal identification systems is a ubiquitous procedure in present times. Biometrics has certain limitations, such as in cases when bodies are decomposed, burned, or only small fragments of calcified tissues remain. Dental enamel is the most mineralized tissue of organisms and resists post-mortem degradation. It is characterized by layers of prisms of regularly alternating directions, known as Hunter-Schreger bands (HSB). In this article, we show that the pattern variation of the HSB, referred here as toothprint, can be used as a biometric-based parameter for personal identification in automated systems.