The differential effects of prenatal and postnatal audiogenic stress on fluctuating dental asymmetry.

Audiogenic stress has been shown to have an effect on the development of molar teeth. The present study demonstrates the relative contribution of prenatal and postnatal stress components to increases in fluctuating dental asymmetry in the laboratory rat. It is shown that there is a limit to the amount of change which can be environmentally induced and that if this limit is reached with prenatal stress, postnatal stress will have no significant effect. Audiogenic stress is shown to effect differentially mandibular and maxillary first molars. Length is stable for the maxillary dentition and width is stable in the mandibular molars.