Tooth Sensitivity Could be Cured by Nanobots

The future of medicine is robots. From robots that help surgeons perform surgery, to tiny little nanobots that can help alleviate tooth sensitivity, it seems that robots are the way to go. 

Most people experience tooth sensitivity — that truly unpleasant sensation that occurs in your teeth when you drink something cold — at some point throughout their life. Now, researchers from India have published their research in Advanced Science that describes how they developed special nanobots that could solve the problem of tooth sensitivity for once and for all. 

The Roots of Tooth Sensitivity
According to South First, the roots of tooth sensitivity lie in the soft tissue in teeth called dentine underneath the hard enamel coating. This layer contains small channels that lead directly to the teeth’s nerve endings. And so, when enamel becomes worn down or gums recede, the channels become exposed and any sensation — such as drinking something very cold or eating something very sweet — becomes intensely felt. 

In order to relieve this pain, reported New Atlas, many people use desensitizing toothpastes, but these only give temporary relief.  So, the researchers decided to think deeper, and created  CalBots, miniscule nanobots that can be used to plug up the bothersome channels, thus permanently solving the problem of tooth sensitivity.

So how do these nanobots work? The CalBots are placed on the surface of the bothersome tooth, or teeth, and then are guided via an externally applied magnetic field into the dentine. From there they can burrow into the exposed channels and fill them with a special bioceramic, cement-like plug, that mimics enamel and permanently protects the channels and the nerves. 

Little Mice Teeth
As South First notes, the researchers first tested the CalBots and the bioceramic plug on extracted human teeth to ensure that the plug would indeed take and become permanent. Later, they also tested it on mice that had had induced tooth sensitivity. These mice began to refuse to drink cold water. However, within only 20 minutes after receiving treatment by the CalBots, the mice were happily sipping on cold water again. 

“We wanted a technology to solve a real problem in a way that no one has attempted before,” the study’s authors told South First. 

The implications of this research goes beyond dental care, reports ScienMag. It speaks to the development of new horizons in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Thanks to the researchers from India, the world is closer than ever to achieving this goal.

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