Chemical deterioration of teeth is common among modern humans, and has been suggested for some extinct primates. Dental erosion caused by acidic foods may also obscure microwear signals of mechanical food properties. Ring-tailed lemurs at the Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve (BMSR), Madagascar, display frequent severe tooth wear and subsequent tooth loss. In contrast, sympatric Verreaux's sifaka d...

Unworn teeth of herbivorous mammals are not immediately functional. They have to be partially worn to expose enamel ridges which can then act as shear-cutting blades to break the food down. We use the Plains Zebra (Equus quagga) as a hypsodont, herbivorous model organism to investigate how initial wear of the tooth crown is controlled by underlying structures. We find that the enamel proportion...

The comparative method is central to interpretations of Eocene primate palaeobiology. This method rests upon a thorough study of analogous living forms. With a rapidly increasing knowledge of such forms, most notably the Malagasy lemurs, our ability to advance the study of Eocene primate ecology, biology and behaviour far exceeds that of even just a few years ago. Here we present such a compari...

BACKGROUND Studies examining human and nonhuman primates have supported the hypothesis that the recent increase in the occurrence of misalignment of teeth and/or incorrect relation of dental arches, named dental malocclusion, is mainly attributed to the availability of a more processed diet and the reduced need for powerful masticatory action. For the first time on live human populations, genet...

BACKGROUND Gingival recession in dentitions with otherwise healthy periodontium is a common occurrence in adults. Recession is clinically measured using a periodontal probe to the nearest millimeter. The aim of this study is to establish quantitative measures of recession, the clinical crown height, and a new measure the gingival margin-papillae measurement. The latter is seen as the shortest a...

Examination and comparison of the morphological features of tooth crown in archaeological and recent samples can be difficult due to the different levels of tooth wear seen both within and between populations. These differences make the comparison of frequency data for Carabelli trait problematic. The aim of the present study is to detect the frequency and degree of expression of Carabelli's tr...

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of polymeric computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing CAD/CAM materials on antagonistic primary tooth wear. Five CAD/CAM polymeric materials were examined: Vipi Block Monocolor (VBM), Yamahachi polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) (YAP), Mazic Duro (MZD), Vita Enamic (ENA), and Pekkton (PEK). All of the specimens were tested in a thermomechani...

PURPOSE This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of full-coverage all-ceramic zirconia, lithium disilicate glass-ceramic, leucite glass-ceramic, or stainless steel crowns on antagonistic primary tooth wear. MATERIALS AND METHODS There were four study groups: the stainless steel (Steel) group, the leucite glass-ceramic (Leucite) group, the lithium disilicate glass-ceramic (Lithium) gro...

Evidence suggests that patients suffer the painful symptoms of dentine hypersensitivity when dentine is exposed and the dentinal tubule system is opened to the oral cavity to allow stimuli to trigger a neural response in the pulp via a hydrodynamic mechanism. The processes needed to localise lesions of dentine hypersensitivity include loss of enamel and/or gingival recession. Whilst tooth brush...