Peripheral nerve injury in neonatal rats results in the death of the majority of the axotomized sensory neurons by 7 d after injury. In adult animals, however, all sensory neurons survive for at least 4 months after axotomy. How sensory neurons acquire the capacity to survive axonal injury is not known. Here we describe how the expression of the small heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) is correlated...

Microglia respond rapidly to injury of peripheral nerve axons (axotomy). This response is integrated into the responses of the injured neurons, i.e. processes for neuron survival, axon regeneration and restoration of target contact. The microglial response is also integrated in changes in presynaptic terminals on axotomized motor or autonomic neurons and in changes in the central terminals of p...

p38 is a member of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase superfamily and mediates intracellular signal transduction. Recent studies suggest that p38 is involved in apoptotic signaling in several cell types, including neurons. In the mammalian retina, approximately 50% of the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) die by apoptosis during development. Additionally, transection of the optic nerve clos...

background and objective: sensory neurons have critical role in improvement of functional outcome of any neuroprotective strategy. the herbal medicine nepeta menthoides has been reported to have anti-apoptotic effect on axotomized spinal motoneurons. in the present study, the putative neuroprotective effect of nepeta menthoides on the axotomized dorsal root ganglion sensory neurons in neonate r...

To study bilateral nerve changes in a newly developed novel mouse model for neurotrophic keratopathy by approaching the trigeminal nerve from the lateral fornix. Surgical axotomy of the ciliary nerve of the trigeminal nerve was performed in adult BALB/c mice at the posterior sclera. Axotomized, contralateral, and sham-treated corneas were excised on post-operative days 1, 3, 5, 7 and 14 and imm...

Cathepsin S (CS) is a lysosomal/endosomal cysteine protease especially expressed in cells of a mononuclear lineage including microglia. To better understand the role of CS in microglia, we investigated microglial responses after a facial nerve axotomy in CS-deficient (CS-/-) and wild-type mice. Microglia in both groups accumulated in the facial motor nucleus following axotomy. However, the mean...

Axotomy of the sciatic nerve have been documented to cause neuronal loss, especially in newborn rats. Few works have focused on time course of neuronal loss and the type of cell death, which occurs after axotomy. Forty rat pups were anesthetized by hypothermia and the right sciatic nerve transected at five days of their age and the left side was used as control. The operated animals were sacrif...

Sciatic nerve section (axotomy) increases the excitability of rat dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. The changes in Ca2+ currents, K+ currents, Ca2+ sensitive K+ current, and hyperpolarization-activated cation current (I(H)) that may be associated with this effect were examined by whole cell recording. Axotomy affected the same conductances in all types of DRG neuron. In general, the largest c...

To compare the long-term recovery of gene expression in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons under conditions of regeneration vs. non-regeneration, Northern blotting and in situ hybridization were used to assess steady-state neurofilament (NF) and beta tubulin mRNA levels 12 weeks following axonal injury. Adult male rats sustained either a crush lesion of the mid-sciatic nerve (regeneration occur...

Motoneuron populations possess a range of intrinsic excitability that plays an important role in establishing how motor units are recruited. The fact that this range collapses after axotomy and does not recover completely until after reinnervation occurs suggests that muscle innervation is needed to maintain or regulate adult motoneuron excitability, but the nature and identity of underlying me...