Beneath the hard substance of the tooth is an intricate system of nerves and blood cells. While the enamel and dentine layers that are hard tissues are formed due to mineralization, the dental pulp is living soft tissue consisting of connective tissues, nerves and blood cells in the tooth centre. Dental pulp is sheltered from injury by dentin and enamel. It serves nourishment function, sensory function and dentin formation function.
The dental pulp is unique living inner tissues that varies among people, age and also among existing teeth in one’s mouth. An incisor or a canine has only one root canal while a premolar gets 1-2 root canal(s). There are 3-4 root canals in a molar tooth. The truth is actual numbers of root canal tends to vary.
Dental pulp function
Teeth with intact pulp are better equipped to fight off bacterial invasion than teeth without pulp. Therefore, the most important function of the pulp is to provide defence against invading microbes. The pulp plays a vital role in the existence of a tooth, including:
- Sensory function: dental pulp helps people feel, especially painful feeling when there is any stimulation, such as trauma, injury, sudden change in temperature when eat or drink and abnormal pressure placed on teeth.
- Dentin formation: As a response to any injury the dentin may experience, dental pulp supports to regenerate dentin that is also known as reparative dentin
- Nourishment function: Dental pulp helps nourish the tooth. The flowing of blood inside the tooth avoid the tooth from being brittle.
