An Ohio University professor will study how a common dental procedure can damage a nerve in the mouth
A professor at Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine has been awarded a $445,500 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study a common injury that can result from routine dental work.
Susan Williams, the project’s lead researcher, plans to study how the lingual nerve, which runs across the bottom of the mouth to the back of the jaw, can be damaged when a person has his or her molar teeth removed.
If the lingual nerve becomes damaged, people can notice pain in their mouth and jaw, Williams, a professor of anatomy with the college, said.
Williams said she will use the pig as the base model for her investigation.
“We use a pig because it's the standard for oral and facial models,” she said. “They are more similar to us than many other traditional laboratory species.”
In addition, Williams said she will use will use a technique that uses two different X-ray videos to create a 3D moving image of the skull.
In some of her previous research, Williams studied dental morphology and how various mammals chew food, but this is the first grant from NIH that Williams has received.
“As with any grant, it’s thrilling to get,” she said. “It’s always nice to see that someone thinks that the research you’re doing is good.”
After she finishes her grant research, Williams said she wants to start developing methods of rehabilitation for the people who suffer pain from the surgical procedures.
“We want to develop new rehabilitation strategies to help, but we need to know what goes wrong first,” she said.
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