New research from Japan has revealed that dental phobia may be triggered by the sound of dental drills and suction instruments used during surgery. Researchers at the Nippon Dental University in Tokyo carried out brain scans on volunteers whilst the sounds of dental instruments were being played; people who were scared of the dentist showed a noticeable difference in brain response compared to those that were not worried about undergoing dental treatment. The results were reported at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego on Sunday.
Dentist Hiroyuki Karibe, a researcher at the University, asked 21 women and 13 men aged between 19 and 49 to complete a survey with questions like ‘do you get tense during dental treatment?’ and ‘do you feel anxious when you hear the dental drill?’ Volunteers answered on a scale of one to five, with one being ‘not at all’ and five representing ‘very much’.
The volunteers were then divided into high-fear or low-fear groups according to their scores, and Karibe scanned their brains using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (fMRI) whilst playing a serious of sounds associated with dental treatment. Each participant registered some brain activity in response to the sounds; those with a high-fear of the dentist presented a more intense response in the left-hand region of the brain, known as the caudate nucleus, which plays a role in learning and remembering sounds.
Karibe told The Guardian that ‘We believe the findings can be applied to assess the effectiveness of interventions such as cognitive behaviour therapy for patients who have a strong fear of dental treatment.’