ABSTRACT
Like many other parts of our body, the oral cavity is affected by conditions of acute and chronic stress. In the oral cavity, most of the observed changes involve the effect of the stressful situation on salivary fluid. Nevertheless, the effect of stress on psychophysiological changes in the oral cavity has been acknowledged for many years. Saliva is probably one of the most studied oral correlates of stress. In the early 1970's, it became apparent that the measurement of flow alone was not sufficient to understand the full effect of stress on saliva, more sophisticated measures are used to better understand the psychophysiological effect of stressful conditions on saliva. The effect of saliva on bacterial adherence and colonization in the oral cavity, its buffering activity, and regulation of the ionic environment are some of the saliva-dependent processes affecting caries activity.
