The outcome of peripheral nerve injury is often impaired by post-traumatic neuroma developing at the injury site. Neuroma is usually accompanied by neuropathic pain, which is usually resistant to most analgesics and presents a serious clinical problem. The mechanisms underlying post-traumatic neuroma remain unclear, but they are likely associated with regeneration processes. Brain-derived neuro...

Synthetic nerve conduits have emerged as an alternative to guide axonal regeneration in peripheral nerve gap injuries. Migration of Schwann cells (SC) from nerve stumps has been demonstrated as one essential factor for nerve regeneration in nerve defects. In this experiment, SC viability and migration were investigated for various materials to determine the optimal conditions for nerve regenera...

PURPOSE Effective therapy for visual loss caused by optic nerve injury or diseases has not been achieved even though the optic nerve has the regeneration potential after injury. This study was designed to modify amniotic epithelial cells (AECs) with basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) gene, preliminarily investigating its effect on transected optic nerve. METHODS A human bFGF gene segment w...

** Kurt Brattain MD is a data scientist/statistician and is board certified in Family Medicine with a current medical license in the state of Minnesota. Questions and inquiries can be directed to [email protected]. Importance of Transected Gap Length – Transected peripheral nerve injury (PNI) repair involves sizing up each patient’s capacity to regain the use of their damaged nerve and ...

A collagen mafrix (COL)gel was .used to fill a 3 mm gap resulting from transection of rat sdatic nerve. The nerve was initially stabilized with a split polyethylene tubing in order to remove elastic tension at the nerve repair site. The contralateral sdatic nerve was identically prepared but the gap was left empty. Animal survival time was '9 to 12 weeks. One day prior to killing. somatosensory...

In mature mammals, retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) are unable to regenerate their axons after optic nerve injury, and they soon undergo apoptotic cell death. However, a small puncture wound to the lens enhances RGC survival and enables these cells to regenerate their axons into the normally inhibitory environment of the optic nerve. Even when the optic nerve is intact, lens injury stimulates macr...

The specific contribution of the proximal and distal nerve stumps across an 8 mm gap within silicone chamber regeneration models was studied. For this, proximal and distal (Group A), distal and distal (Group B) and proximal and proximal (Group C) nerve stumps were placed in opposite ends of silicone chambers. In all the groups, a tissue cable forms between the nerve stumps, demonstrating that, ...

GAP-43 is a membrane-associated phosphoprotein enriched in elongating axons (Meiri et al., 1986; Skene et al., 1986). After an axon has been interrupted by cutting or crushing a nerve (axotomy), the portion of the axon disconnected from the cell body (distal stump) degenerates and is replaced by the outgrowth (elongation) of regenerating sprouts arising from the proximal stump. Previous studies...

The synaptic vesicle exocytosis occurs by a highly regulated mechanism: syntaxin and 25 kDa synaptosome-associated protein (SNAP-25) are assembled with vesicle-associated membrane protein (VAMP) to form a synaptic core complex and then synaptotagmin participates as a Ca2+ sensor in the final step of membrane fusion. The 43 kDa growth-associated protein GAP-43 is a nerve-specific protein that is...

Diabetes Mellitus, a highly prevalent and rapidly increasing metabolic disease, can cause several serious complications including visual damage blindness caused by ocular nerve damage. Nerve fiber degeneration might occur because of the accumulation glycation end-products in Descemet’s membrane nerve. The severity corneal diabetic keratopathy be examined through regeneration nerves, specificall...