The pudendal nerve innervates the external urethral sphincter and, when injured, can contribute to incontinence development. This experiment was designed to study the time course of functional changes in the urethra after pudendal nerve crush in rats. Leak-point pressure (LPP) was measured 2, 4, 7, or 14 days after bilateral pudendal nerve crush and was compared to that of a control group. LPP ...

OBJECTIVE Crush injury to the sciatic nerve causes oxidative stress. Alfa Lipoic acid (a-LA) is a neuroprotective metabolic antioxidant. This study was designed to investigate the antioxidant effects of pretreatment with a-LA on the crush injury of rat sciatic nerve. METHODS Forty rats were randomized into four groups. Group I and Group II received saline (2 ml, intraperitoneally) and a-LA (1...

JAM-C is a junctional adhesion molecule, enriched at tight junctions on endothelial and epithelial cells, and also localized to Schwann cells at junctions between adjoining myelin end loops. The role of JAM-C following peripheral nerve injury (PNI) is currently unknown. We examined the localization of JAM-C after sciatic nerve crush injury in adult rats. JAM-C immunoreactivity was present in pa...

OBJECTIVES To systematically record rat facial nerve recovery following crush injury to the main trunk with respect to ocular and vibrissial function and to compare the rates of facial and sciatic nerve recovery from crush injury in the same animals. This serves as a means of validating the functional parameters of facial nerve recovery against the well-known measure of hind limb function, the ...

PURPOSE To better understand the molecular program of neuronal cell death induced by axotomy, the authors attempted to identify retinal genes differentially expressed by optic nerve crush. METHODS Total RNA isolated from rat retinas at 1 and 4 days after intraorbital optic nerve crush was used in a modification of the differential display technique. After several rounds of screening, a single...

An increasing weight of evidence implicates early inflammatory events as inhibitors of functional recovery in both peripheral and central neuropathologies. In this study, we investigated the role of the inflammatory TNF-α/NF-κB axis on events subsequent to sciatic nerve crush injury in rats. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) revealed that within 6 hours post-crush NF-κB DNA binding a...

The activities of uridine kinase (EC 2.7.1.48), uridine monophosphate (UMP) kinase (EC 2.7.1.3.14), and uridine diphosphate (UDP) kinase (EC 2.7.4.6) were measured in retinal high-speed supernatant fractions following unilateral optic nerve crush in the goldfish. The enzyme activities followed a similar time course, with initial increases 2-3 days following nerve crush, peak activity at 4 days,...

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of bilberry extract anthocyanins on retinal ganglion cell (RGC) survival after optic nerve crush. Additionally, to determine details of the mechanism of the neuroprotective effect of bilberry extract anthocyanins and the involvement of endoplasmic reticulum stress suppression in the mouse retina. MATERIALS AND METHODS Anthocyanins in bilberry extract (100 mg/...

BACKGROUND Cytidine 5'-diphosphocholine (citicoline) has been shown to have beneficial effects in central nervous system injury as well as in motoric functional recovery after peripheral nerve injury. This study aimed to examine the effect of citicoline on prevention of neuropathic pain in a rat model of sciatic nerve crush injury. METHODS Forty experimental rats were divided into four groups...

Several studies have demonstrated that L-carnitine exhibits neuroprotective effects on injured sciatic nerve of rats with diabetes mellitus. It is hypothesized that L-carnitine exhibits neuroprotective effects on injured sciatic nerve of rats. Rat sciatic nerve was crush injured by a forceps and exhibited degenerative changes. After intragastric administration of 50 and 100 mg/kg L-carnitine fo...