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Teeth as Potential New Tools to Measure Early-Life Adversity and Subsequent Mental Health Risk: An Interdisciplinary
Kathryn A Davis1, Rebecca V Mountain2, Olivia R Pickett1
1Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Biological Psychiatry
|December 21, 2019
Summary
Teeth can reveal a child's history of early-life adversity, offering a novel biomarker for mental health risk. This research highlights teeth as biological fossils to identify at-risk youth for timely interventions.
Area of Science:
- Integrates research from dentistry, anthropology, and archaeology.
- Focuses on human tooth development as a record of life experiences.
Background:
- Early-life adversity impacts nearly half of US youth, increasing psychiatric disorder risk.
- Lack of reliable tools to measure early-life adversity hinders preventative interventions.
- Sensitive periods in development may amplify adversity's long-term effects.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explore the potential of human teeth as a biomarker for early-life adversity.
- To integrate knowledge of tooth development with psychopathology risk.
- To propose a conceptual model for using teeth to identify at-risk individuals.
Main Methods:
- Review of empirical work on human tooth development in dentistry, anthropology, and archaeology.
- Analysis of teeth as biological fossils preserving individual life histories.
- Integration of psychosocial adversity research with tooth development insights.
Main Results:
- Teeth preserve a time-resolved record of early-life experiences.
- Teeth can be examined as biological fossils imprinted with life history.
- A conceptual model suggests teeth as a potential tool for identifying mental health risks.
Conclusions:
- Human teeth offer an understudied yet promising avenue for identifying individuals at risk for mental health problems.
- Further interdisciplinary research is needed to validate teeth as biomarkers for early-life stress.
- Developing new biomarkers for adversity is crucial for timely psychiatric interventions.
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