K. Van Loven et al., Sensations and trigeminal somatosensory-evoked potentials elicited by electrical stimulation of endosseous oral implants in humans, ARCH ORAL B, 45(12), 2000, pp. 1083-1090
The perception of bipolar electrical stimuli through implants was studied.
The stimuli were delivered to permucosal oral endosseous implants in 15 ind
ividuals, who then reported tapping to beating sensations. In 10 out of the
15, these stimuli evoked clearly distinguishable potentials in the average
d electroencephalograms. The most prominent scalp potential was a positive
wave with a latency between 18 and 25 ms, often preceded by a negative wave
with a latency around 12-17 ms. In contrast, when a motor response was eli
cited by stimulation of the lip, a shorter latency wave around 8-11 ms was
found additionally, indicating that the former-mentioned waves represent a
true sensory response and not an artefact of myogenous origin. Furthermore,
topical anaesthesia of the gingiva surrounding the implants in six individ
uals had little effect on the sensory responses. This evidence excluded per
i-implant mucosal innervation as the origin of the perception and of the so
matosensory-evoked waves elicited by the electrical stimulation of the oral
implants. To the best of our knowledge, for the first time a sensation (os
seoperception) has been elicited by electrical stimulation of endosseous or
al implants and correlated with simultaneously recorded trigeminal somatose
nsory-evoked potentials (TSEPs). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.