Re: Do dental nerves serve any useful purpose?

Dear Tom,

Each tooth has a central cavity known as the pulp cavity that contains 
a soft tissue, knon as "pulp," which is composed of nerve fibers, blood 
vessels, lymph vessels, and connective tissue. These assist in maintaining 
the "vitality" of the tooth and the nerve fibers tell the central nervous 
system if there is an inimical stimulus acting on the tooth. So, as you 
see, the short answer is "yes those dental nerves do serve a purpose." 
Having said that, the longer answer is that their purpose is not essential 
for the individual and once the pulp is compromised severely enough it 
cannot recover and then there are two choices: an less expensive choice of 
extracting the tooth, or the more expensive choice of saving the tooth by 
removing the pulp and filling the pulp cavity. Although I am not 
a dentist, personally, I like to see the tooth being saved because it is 
much better for the patient and that tooth can serve the patient for 
several decades. So, if the endodontic procedure (root canal) costs let's 
say $800.00 and the patient retains that tooth for only 20 years, that's 
$40.00 per year or slightly more than a dollar a day. 

I hope this helps.

Leslie P. Gartner, Ph.D.
Department of Anatomy, OCBS
Dental School
University of Maryland
Baltimore, MD