Figure 1

Histological and behavioral characterization of dental pulp injury. a, b Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain of sham and injured teeth 7 days after experimental surgery illustrating the extent of pulp exposure. The images in (a) and (b1) were in a comparable scale, and the dashed lines indicated the intact (a) and injured (b1) dental pulps, respectively. b2 and b3 are images of DPI in different scales for showing the particular pathological changes. c–e Quantification of water intake (c), food intake (d), and bodyweight (e) subsequent to sham control or dental pulp injury (DPI) surgery. Note: c and d show values that have been normalized based on the average water and food intake values from the 2 days (dashed lines) prior to the surgery, respectively. The two dashed lines in (e) represent the average bodyweights from the 3 days prior to the sham control and DPI surgeries. All values are shown as mean ± SEM. n = 8 and 9 mice for the sham and DPI groups, respectively. **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, sham vs. DPI, unpaired Student’s t test. A two-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between the sham and DPI groups in terms of water (P = 0.001) and food (P = 0.007) intake as well as body weight (P = 0.001). Please see the text for more details.