A touch-guided neural circuit regulates motivated gnawing to maintain dental alignment

2026/03/10 by Xinyu Su, Xin-Yu Su, Elizabeth A. Ronan +18 · 1 voice
Engineering · Neuroscience · #Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials #EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces #Tactile and Sensory Interactions

paper · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2026.01.021

openalex publication_date 2026/03/10 · crossref created 2026/03/10 · openalex created_date 2026/03/12 · crossref issued 2026/06/01 · crossref published 2026/06/01 · crossref published-print 2026/06/01 · crossref deposited 2026/06/11 · crossref indexed 2026/06/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/13

Citations

• Cranial morphology and dietary habits of rodents
• Intradental mechano-nociceptors serve as sentinels that prevent tooth damage

Discussions

• 1/ Why do rodents gnaw on everything? 🐭🪵 It’s not just because their teeth keep growing or that hard foods trim the teeth. Our new paper in Neuron shows that gnawing itself is rewarding to the brai [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]