3D nanoscale characterization of disease induced mineralization abnormalities in teeth using Texture tomography

Teeth are designed to resist extreme physical and chemical conditions, but they cannot reform and are unable to heal degradation such as caries. Their integrity and exceptional mechanical properties rely on their complex underlying nanostructure within different anatomical regions, but the local organization of these regions and how this is affected by mineralization pathologies are not yet fully understood. This is partly due to the difficulties of studying the smaller length scales of the tooth in 3D. To this end, we propose to use Texture tomography (TexTOM) to study healthy and abnormal teeth from children to understand the link between tooth nanostructure, hypomineralization and caries susceptibility.