WHY TEETH?

You might be wondering – why would scientists want to study teeth?

In our current research study, we want to learn if and how children’s shed primary or “baby” teeth might record information about their early life experiences.

Our team’s primary goal is to find ways to help all children grow up to be healthy and strong. One of the biggest threats to healthy child development is exposure to adversity – such as growing up in poverty, losing a loved one, witnessing a traumatic event, experiencing a natural disaster, or some other type of stressful event. Unfortunately, these adversities are common, affecting up to 60% of children worldwide.

There is still a lot scientists have to learn about how these adversities could affect child development. With this information, we hope to identify strategies to improve resilience among children who are exposed to these types of events.

A major challenge scientists currently face is the lack of tools to accurately measure children’s exposure to adversity. We need tools that can help us identify not only if a child has been exposed, but also when they were exposed.

As we describe in this video below, we think teeth may be a new way to measure different kinds of life experiences.