Cerebral responses to electrical tooth pulp stimulation in man. An objective correlate of acute experimental pain.

The pulp of individual teeth of 17 normal adult volunteers was electrically stimulated via pairs of electrodes implanted into dentine. Computer-summated responses recorded from the surface of the head were composed of two concurrent sequences of events, one of which was seen maximally over midline areas and the other over the lower portions of the postcentral regions. Appropriate tests demonstrated that these wave forms represented cerebral tooth pulp-evoked potentials. Because tooth pulp-evoked potentials represent objective, quantifiable, nonverbal concomitants of central events associated with the perception of noxious stimuli, they may prove helpful in investigating acute experimental pain in man.