The distribution of nerves in human deciduous and permanent teeth

Human permanent teeth without caries, obtained from 10-16 year old males and females and noncarious human deciduous teeth in which roots remained intact or were only poorly resorbed, were studied histologically. The distribution of sensory nerves in deciduous teeth were compared with that in permanent teeth by means of the silver-nitrate technique. 1. In radicular pulp, the sensory nerve fiber bundles accompany blood vessels in the axial area and several nerve single-fibers occur in the peripheral area of the pulp. 2. The subodontoblastic nerve plexus is formed in or beneath the cell-rich zone of the coronal pulp, and further, the marginal nerve plexus is built up near the pulpo-predentinal border. 3. The nerve fibers entering the predentin can be classified into 3 types by their courses. In the first type, nerve fibers pass directly toward the calcification front along the dentinal tubules in the predentin. In the second type, nerve fibers run obliquely or transversely in the predentin. The transversal fibers form a plexus-like structure by dividing and interlacing at various levels of predentin. The third type nerve fibers pass along the dentinal tubules in the predentin and, after reaching the predentino-dentinal border, reverse the odontoblast layer, thus forming a looped course. 4. There is no essential difference between the nerve supply in the deciduous and in the permanent teeth, but the nerves in the deciduous teeth are less dense in distribution and lower in amount than in the permanent teeth. Moreover, a typical marginal nerve plexus, which occurs constantly in the permanent teeth, is only occasionally found in the deciduous teeth; and no nerve fiber was observed to penetrate into the calcified dentin in the deciduous teeth. This finding seems to account for the fact that the deciduous teeth are less sensitive than their permanent successors.