Physiologic and morphologic aspects of nerve regeneration after end-to-end or end-to-side coaptation in a rat model of brachial plexus injury

Abstract

The results of repairing a transected rat musculocutaneous nerve by suturing the distal stump, end to side or end to end, to the ipsilateral ulnar nerve were assessed at 3 months by retrograde labeling and morphologic and physiologic analysis. Unlike most other models of end-to-side repair in which the injured recipient and donor reinnervating nerves have overlapping neuron pools in the spinal cord, in this model the neurons of the injured musculocutaneous and the reinnervating ulnar nerves are located in mutually exclusive segments of the spinal cord. Using retrograde labeling we show that the reinnervating fibers are derived solely from the ulnar nerve pool. Both end-to-side and end-to-end..