Concluding remarks

Abstract

The dental pulp has been a ‘black box’ from the physiological perspective until recently. The early years of research on the pulp focused on structures, because methods sufficiently sophisticated to examine the dynamics of the pulp had not yet been developed. With advancements in electronics, radioisotope and laser technologies, however, pulp physiologists have slowly but steadily unscrambled the content of the ‘black box’. It is generally acknowledged that the greatest advancement in pulp physiology research has occurred in the past decade, and this section on the pulp represents the finest collection of that research by key researchers. We are now in a position to make structural-functional correlations of the pulp in health and disease. A similar linkage must also be made between the microcirculatory and sensory systems of the pulp. The recent discovery of the presence of a host of neuropeptides in the pulp suggest that the two systems are highly interdependent, but a collective investigation on the neuro-vascular link is essential for the full elucidation of the dynamics of the dental pulp.