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10 - Optimizing Preparation Protocols and Microscopy for Cementochronology

from Part II - Protocols

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2022

By
Paola Cerrito ,
Stephan Naji  and
Timothy Bromage
Edited by
Stephan Naji ,
William Rendu  and
Lionel Gourichon
Stephan Naji
Affiliation:
New York University
William Rendu
Affiliation:
University of Bordeaux (CNRS)
Lionel Gourichon
Affiliation:
Université de Nice, Sophia Antipolis
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Summary

Counting dental acellular cementum (AC) annulations is used to estimate age at death in anthropological contexts by embedding the tooth, sectioning the root, and imaging the thin sections. However, there are several published protocols creating confusion to optimize these steps. We compared three standard illumination techniques (differential interference contrast; transmitted bright field; transmitted polarized) on sections with the same thickness, field of view, on three types of samples: fresh teeth embedded in both MMA and epoxy; archeological samples embedded in epoxy. We compared the quality of AC increment visibility on longitudinal and transversal sections of the same root, to optimize the quality of AC micrographs for age estimation. Results suggest that differential interference contrast microscopy might be ideal, even though brightfield consistently provides a decent image; epoxy resin with quick polymerization time doesn't affect AC structure and allows for higher contrast than traditional MMA; transverse sections are more consistent. These results emphasize the need for cementum-specific procedures not always compatible with traditional dental analyses.

Keywords

Cementumprotocolhistologymicroscopyembeddingthin-section preparationMMAepoxy
Type
Chapter
Information
Dental Cementum in Anthropology , pp. 189 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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