저출력 레이저조사가 동통반응에 미치는 영향

EFFECT OF LOW - POWER LASER IRRADIATION ON PAIN RESPONSE

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of low - power laser used in the medical field for various purposes to suppress pain responses evoked by noxious electrical or mechanical stimuli. After both inferior alveolar nerves and the left anterior digastric muscle of cats under general anesthesia were exposed, a recording electrode for the jaw opening reflex was inserted into the anterior digastric muscle. The right inferior alveolar nerve was dissected under a surgical microscope until the response of the functional single nerve could be evoked by the electrical stimulation of the dental pulp or oral mucosa. The electrical stimulus was applied with a rectangular pulse of 10 ms duration for measuring the threshold intensity of a single nerve fiber in the inferior alveolar nerve which responds to stimulation of dental pulp and oral mucosa. Then a pulse of 1 ms duration was applied for determination of conduction velocity. A noxious mechanical stimulus to the oral mucosa was applied by clamping the receptive field with an arterial clamp. The Ga-As diodide laser(wave length, 904 nm ; frequency, 1,000 Hz) was irradiated to the prepared tooth cavity, inferior alveolar nerve and oral mucosa as a pulse wave of 2 mW for 6 minutes. This was followed by a continuous wave of 15 mW for 3 minutes. The action potential of the nerve and EMG of the digastric muscle evoked by the noxious electrical stimulus and nerve response to noxious mechanical stimulus were compared at intervals of before, immediately after, and at 5, 10, 20, 40, 60 minutes after laser irradiation. The results were as follows: The conduction velocity of the intrapulpal $A{\delta}$- nerve fiber recorded from the inferior alveolar nerve before irradiation had a mean value of $6.68{\pm}2.07m/sec$. The laser irradiation did not affect the conduction velocity of the AS - nerve fiber and did not change the threshold intensity or amplitude of the action potential either. The EMG of the digastric muscle evoked by noxious electrical stimulation to the tooth was not changed by the laser irradiation, whether in latency, threshold intensity or amplitude. The laser irradiated to the receptive field of the oral mucosa which was subjected to noxious stimuli did not affect the amplitude of the action potential or the frequency either.