A Study on the Relationship between the Intimacy of Proximal Contact Point and the Vibrational Transmission to Adjacent Teeth

Abstract

This study was designed to examine the transmissible phase of an impulse throughthe proximal contact point of two neighboring teeth according to changes in the level of intimacy at the contact point.
The experiment was carried out by a dynamic measurement of models, in which two natural teeth were fixed at three degrees of contact to simulate an increase in the periodontal ligament space or alveolar bone resorption, and the resulting data were analyzed by the fast Fouriertransformation method.
The results were as follows
1. As for the distribution of the spectrum of an impulse, which was caused on the two neighboring teeth and the power of the spectrum, the similarity of the vibrations that were picked up simultaneously on the tapped tooth and on its neighboring tooth was lessened as the intimacy of the contact point was decreased.
2. The two teeth showed the same peak frequency at any level of intimacy of the contact point, and the peak frequency dropped as the intimacy was weakened until the teeth ceased tocontact each other.
These data suggested that an impulse was transmitted by a tooth to its neighboring tooth through their proximal contact point and that its frequency was influenced by the level of intimacy at the proximal contact point.