Microsurgical techniques for the treatment of large peripheral nerve injuries (such as the gold standard autograft) and its main clinically approved alternative--hollow nerve guidance conduits (NGCs)--have a number of limitations that need to be addressed. NGCs, in particular, are limited to treating a relatively short nerve gap (4 cm in length) and are often associated with poor functional rec...

Methods: Twenty-four Sprague Dawley rats were divided into 2 groups. All underwent left sciatic nerve injury, leaving a 10mm gap. The injury was repaired using either: 1) Reverse autograft – the 10mm cut segment was oriented 180° and used to coapt the proximal and distal ends or 2) UBM conduit the 10mm nerve gap was bridged with UBM conduit. Validated behavior assessments such as Sciatic Functi...

Methods: Twenty-four Sprague Dawley rats were divided into 2 groups. All underwent left sciatic nerve injury, leaving a 10mm gap. The injury was repaired using either: 1) Reverse autograft – the 10mm cut segment was oriented 180° and used to coapt the proximal and distal ends or 2) UBM conduit the 10mm nerve gap was bridged with UBM conduit. Validated behavior assessments such as Sciatic Functi...

The neuronal growth cone plays a crucial role in forming the complex brain architecture achieved during development, and similar nerve terminal mechanisms may operate to modify synaptic structure during adulthood. The growth cone leads the elongating axon towards appropriate synaptic targets by altering motility in response to a variety of extracellular signals. Independently of extrinsic clues...

Axon terminals forming mixed chemical/electrical synapses in the lateral vestibular nucleus of rat were described over 40 years ago. Because gap junctions formed by connexins are the morphological correlate of electrical synapses, and with demonstrations of widespread expression of the gap junction protein connexin36 (Cx36) in neurons, we investigated the distribution and cellular localization ...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS To enhance understanding of spontaneous laryngeal muscle reinnervation following severe recurrent laryngeal nerve injury by testing the hypotheses that 1) nerve fibers responsible for thyroarytenoid muscle reinnervation can originate from multiple sources and 2) superior laryngeal nerve is a source of reinnervation. STUDY DESIGN Prospective, controlled, animal model. M...

In future, adipose-derived stem cells (ASC) might be used to treat neurological disorders. In this study, the neurotrophic and angiogenic properties of human ASC were evaluated, and their effects in a peripheral nerve injury model were determined. In vitro growth factor stimulation of the cells resulted in increased secretion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), glial cell-derived neuro...

Nerve growth factor (NGF) plays a critical role in the trigeminal ganglion (TG) following peripheral nerve damage in the oral region. Although neurons in the TG are surrounded by satellite glial cells (SGCs) that passively support neural function, little is known regarding NGF expression and its interactions with TG neurons and SGCs. This study was performed to examine the expression of NGF in ...

OBJECT By making the "vascularized nerve flap for complete spinal cord gap" model, we assessed the histological effect of this method. METHOD Eight female Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into 2 groups: group A and group B. Group A included "nonvascularized nerve flap" models, whereas group B consisted of "vascularized nerve flap" models. In each group, we transferred peripheral nerves to fil...