AUTHOR=Yeung Andy Wai Kan , Lee Johnson Chun Ming , Tanabe Hiroki C. , Ng Sam Kwai Sang , Khong Pek-Lan , Leung Wai Keung , Goto Tazuko K. 

TITLE=Short Version Dental Anxiety Inventory Score May Predict the Response in the Insular Cortex to Stimuli Mimicking Dental Treatment

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2019

YEAR=2019

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2019.00204

DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2019.00204

ISSN=1662-5161

ABSTRACT=Background
Dental anxiety is a common reason for avoiding dental visits and is associated with poor dental status. The short version of Dental Anxiety Inventory is an easy-to-use, multi-faceted questionnaire for assessing the level of trait dental anxiety. However, there was no neurophysiological data indicating if its score associates with the state anxiety when an individual is under real / mock dental environment. We hypothesized that there exists such an association.
Materials and methods
Twenty systemic healthy adults with dental attendance experience and self-claimed free of dental phobia were recruited in this cross-sectional study, with their dental anxiety level assessed by short version of Dental Anxiety Inventory. Functional magnetic resonance imaging recorded their brain signals in response to audiovisual footages resembling dental scaler or turbine in action. After the brain imaging, they gave fear ratings to the footages in visual analog scale.
Results
Participants’ short version of Dental Anxiety Inventory scores positively correlated with their responses in the insular cortex (r2 = 0.388–0.445, P < 0.005). Their short version of Dental Anxiety Inventory scores also positively correlated with their fear ratings of the footages (r2 = 0.415–0.555, P < 0.005). 
Discussion
Our findings indicated a possible neurobiological relevance of short version of Dental Anxiety Inventory, and reinforced its neurobiological validity in assessing dental anxiety level of dental attenders.