Effect of dental drilling sound on the behavior of C57BL/6J mice

The sound of a dental drill is a major source of fear for both young and old dental patients. Therefore, it is important to improve our understanding of the sound environment in dental clinics. Our previous findings revealed that dental drills emit sounds with several prominent frequency components within the audible and ultrasonic ranges and that teenagers could perceive more sensitively the frequency components of dental drilling sound in high frequency region than the older. There is remarkable structural similarity between the human and the mouse auditory systems and the mouse genes involved in hearing exhibit strong sequence similarities and similar functions to their human counterparts. So a lot numbers of papers using mouse models for hearing research are published. A strains of C57BL/6J mice has examined the auditory brainstem response threshold measurements in wide frequency range. In this study, we performed analysis of the behavioral data obtained from open field test and successive array test for the C57BL/6J mice to find the effect of high frequency components in dental drill sounds on the behavior. These tests are widely used to measure locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior. The results showed that there were effect of frequency components of the dental drilling sound on the perception and behavior in mice with good hearing ability.