On Jan. 8th, 2016, the 2015 National Science and Technology Awards Conference was held in Beijing. Nation's leaders, Jinping Xi and Keqiang Li attended the conference and awarded prize winners. A project from BEBC, Thermal-Mechanical-Neurophysiological Coupled Model of Skin and Tooth Tissues, was awarded 2nd class National Natural Science Awards. Prof. Tian Jian Lu, Prof. Feng Xu and Dr. Min Lin accepted the prize.
Prof. Tian Jian Lu (in the middle)
The project is highly interdisciplinary, involving areas of mechanics and heat transfer.Skin, teeth and other biological tissues posses similar heterogeneous, multi-component and microstructure as composites materials in engineering field. Tissue functions are affected by external thermal or mechanical stimulation through the change in their microstructure and electrophysiological behavior. Characterization of microstructure-evolution dependent tissue function (thermal, mechanical) and exploring and quantification of noxious heat stimulation, mechanical loading and the resulting tissue damage and pain sensation have attracted significantly increasing attention in the field, which however is challenging. As a solution to these issues and inspired by our long-term research on engineering composites materials, we developed a new research framework, i.e., thermal-mechanical-neurophysiological coupled model of skin and tooth tissues, which is highly interdisciplinary involving the subjects of engineering, biology and neurophysiology. Using this breakthrough interdisciplinary approach, we found that the pain sensation as caused by transient thermal stimulation depends on the thermal stimulation and also on thermal stress with thermal stress playing as a key role in tissue damage and pain. The established theory provides power tool for effective clinical laser treatment, microwave therapy and analgesic.
