title: The capacity of the distal stump of peripheral nerve to receive growing axons after two and six months denervation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Peripheral nerve injury may lead to poor recovery outcome in spite of treatment with advanced microsurgical repair techniques. Delayed cross-anastomosis paradigm was used to study the axon grow to the distal nerve stump after denervation separately from the influence of prolonged axotomy in the proximal stump.
  
  
  METHODS
  Left common peroneal nerve of 48 rats was transected and denervated over two or six months. There were two research groups in the study. In the regeneration group (REG) the proximal stump of acutely transected tibial nerve was sutured to denervated distal stump of common peroneal nerve. To our knowledge, this is the first study in which this group was compared to degeneration group (DEG) with both nerve ends denervated over two or six months. This comparison enabled us to study the capacity of denervated distal nerve stump to receive sprouting axons. Axon density in distal nerve stump was calculated after three or six week's follow-up periods.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There were no differences in the number of axon sprouts in the distal nerve stump between the denervation periods of two and six months. When compared REG and DEG groups, there was trend to higher axon densities in the REG group, although the differences were not statistically significant.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the capacity of distal nerve stump to receive the growing axons from the proximal nerve stump does not decrease significantly between two and six months denervation. Cross-anastomosis paradigm provides a useful tool for detailed study of the nerve transfer procedure.
authors: Department of Hand and Microsurgery, Tampere University Hospital, Tampere, Finland University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. henrikki.ronkko@uta.fi
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Rönkkö
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Göransson
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Siironen
authors: H S
authors: HS
authors: Taskinen
authors: V
authors: V
authors: Vuorinen
authors: M
authors: M
authors: Röyttä
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001369:Axons / Q000502:physiology; D003714:Denervation; D009416:Nerve Regeneration / Q000502:physiology*; D010525:Peripheral Nerves / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery*; D010543:Peroneal Nerve / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery*; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013979:Tibial Nerve / Q000502:physiology / Q000601:surgery*