西安交通大學航天學院研究論文“Fluid Mechanics in Dentinal Microtubules Provides Mechanistic Insights into the Difference between Hot and Cold Dental Pain”在國際著名學術刊物《公共科學圖書館—綜合》（PLoS ONE）上發表。

該論文是航天學院生物醫學工程與生物力學研究中心博士生林敏，在導師盧天健教授和哈佛大學醫學院徐峰博士共同指導下，與能動學院白博峰教授合作完成，被PLoS ONE主編確認為不需要外審就可接收的論文。該項研究得到了國家杰出青年科學基金及國家外專局/教育部學科創新引智計劃項目的共同資助。

冷刺激能快速誘發短暫的牙痛感（銳痛），而熱刺激則需要延遲一段時間才能產生持久的疼痛感（鈍痛），這一現象眾所周知，但背后的隱藏的機理卻始終是個迷。學術界至今無法對冷熱刺激引起的牙疼痛機理作出令人滿意的定量或是定性解釋。該篇論文作者針對這一難題，提出了交叉學科的研究方法，利用生物微流體力學模型模擬冷熱刺激下牙本質微管內體液的定向流動對牙髓神經末梢的剪切力，并提出修正的Hodgkin-Huxley神經動力學模型，模擬在剪切力作用下，位于神經末梢傷害性感受器上機械敏感性離子通道的開放特性以及神經元放電信號，并與已有的實驗結果相吻合。該研究在國際上首次揭示了牙齒冷熱疼痛的區別機制，并給出了定量化研究，提出的模型可以預測傷害性刺激引起牙痛強度，并據此來評價、優化口腔臨床診療方法，為臨床口腔鎮痛治療提供了理論支持。

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PLoS ONE 6(3): e18068. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0018068

Fluid Mechanics in Dentinal Microtubules Provides Mechanistic Insights into the Difference between Hot and Cold Dental Pain

Min Lin1, Zheng Yuan Luo2, Bo Feng Bai2, Feng Xu1,3*, Tian Jian Lu1*

1 School of Aerospace, Biomedical Engineering and Biomechanics Center, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China, 2 State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, People's Republic of China, 3 Department of Medicine, HST-Center for Biomedical Engineering, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Dental thermal pain is a significant health problem in daily life and dentistry. There is a long-standing question regarding the phenomenon that cold stimulation evokes sharper and more shooting pain sensations than hot stimulation. This phenomenon, however, outlives the well-known hydrodynamic theory used to explain dental thermal pain mechanism. Here, we present a mathematical model based on the hypothesis that hot or cold stimulation-induced different directions of dentinal fluid flow and the corresponding odontoblast movements in dentinal microtubules contribute to different dental pain responses. We coupled a computational fluid dynamics model, describing the fluid mechanics in dentinal microtubules, with a modified Hodgkin-Huxley model, describing the discharge behavior of intradental neuron. The simulated results agreed well with existing experimental measurements. We thence demonstrated theoretically that intradental mechano-sensitive nociceptors are not “equally sensitive” to inward (into the pulp) and outward (away from the pulp) fluid flows, providing mechanistic insights into the difference between hot and cold dental pain. The model developed here could enable better diagnosis in endodontics which requires an understanding of pulpal histology, neurology and physiology, as well as their dynamic response to the thermal stimulation used in dental practices.

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