Microscopic Analysis of Tooth Formation

Images of the thin-sections were observed and traced using a Zeiss Primotech microscope at 10x or 20x magnification. In thin–sections, incremental lines of von Ebner are ubiquitous light/dark couplets that record the daily apposition of dentine in teeth [36 ]. The number of incremental lines of von Ebner indicates tooth formation time, whereas their thickness indicates the rate of dentine formation per day [37 , 38 (link)]. Measurements from thin-sections were taken using ImageJ v. 1.53 [39 (link)] to get the daily dentine apposition rate (DDAR) and the counts of incremental lines. We followed the methods and arguments laid out in D’Emic, O’Connor [40 (link)] in identifying von Ebner’s incremental width.