Structural changes in masticatory apparatus organs and tissues with chronic environmental pathogenic factor exposure of flight labor

BACKGROUND: The professional activity of the flight crew, conducted day after day under the constant influence of several unfavorable factors (hypergravity, vibration, altered barometric pressure, noise, etc.), leads to a significantly decreased quality of health and the development of phenomena of activity dysregulation of several organs and body systems, which manifests itself even in relative rest conditions. AIM: To study the structural changes in masticatory apparatus organs and tissues under the influence of the main ecopathogenic factors of aviation labor on the body, such as chronic noise exposure, oxygen deficiency, barometric pressure changes, vibration, and hypergravity. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The experimental study included 65 white male rats of the Wistar line, aged 834 weeks. Of these, 10 animals remained intact and 15 were subjected to chronic gravitational overloads following the generally accepted method. The remaining 40 animals were subjected to long-term isolated broadband noise exposure with an intensity of 100 dB, hypoxia, barometric pressure changes, and vibration following the generally accepted methods for modeling aviation overloads. At the end of the experiment, the animals were taken out of the experiment, and the material was taken for morphological studies. RESULTS: The extreme factors of aviation flight (noise, hypoxia, barometric pressure drops, vibration, and hyperweight) with prolonged exposure to a living organism lead to the same type and non-specific multifunctional changes in the masticatory apparatus organs and tissues. The severity of these transformations is most clearly manifested in the hemomicrocirculatory bed and nervous structures and depends both on the air flight influencing factor type and on tissue sensitivity to the effects of these extreme factors. CONCLUSIONS: The most unfavorable factor of flight labor is chronic gravitational overloads, and the salivary glands, masticatory muscles, and dental pulp are the most sensitive to this factor from the masticatory apparatus tissues.