Tooth-supported Single Crowns Do Not Affect Sensory-motor Regulation of Bite Forces

Objectives: Covering a tooth with an artificial crown will affect the flexibility of the tooth when loading it. In addition, this might affect also the movement of the tooth in its alveolar socket and subsequently also the sensory signaling from the periodontal mechanoreceptors.
The purpose of the study was to analyze if a tooth-supported single crown has any impact on the sensory-motor regulation of forces used during a simple biting task.
Methods: 13 subjects with at least one tooth supported single crown on a front tooth and contralateral tooth ‘natural’ (not exposed to any prosthetic treatment) in the upper jaw were included. The subject was instructed to hold a food morsel (half a peanut or a piece of biscuit) placed on a force transducer between two antagonistic teeth and then split it in a natural manner. Each session consisted of five hold- and-split tasks for each food (peanut/biscuit) and tooth (crown/natural), in total 20 hold- and split tasks were performed.
Results: The force used to hold the food morsel between the teeth was overall lower for the biscuit (0.51 N) than the peanut (0.70 N) (P=0.008). No statistically significant difference could be observed between the groups concerning the hold force (P=0.307). The mean split forces observed were 9.5 N for biscuit and 28.7 N for peanut (P<0.001) and no significant difference could be observed between the groups (P=0.887).
Conclusions: The hold-and-split forces were not affected by having a tooth-supported single crown in the anterior part of the upper jaw.