Transection and Crush Models of Nerve Injury to Measure Repair and Remyelination in Peripheral Nerve

Abstract

Injury to the peripheral nervous system begins a well-characterized process within both neurons and Schwann cells to allow axonal regrowth, remyelination, and functional repair. Models of peripheral nerve injury have been widely used to study the behavior of Schwann cells, neurons, and other cell types such as macrophages as the events of Wallerian degeneration and regeneration take place. The most commonly used approaches in rodent models to model nerve injury in human patients are sciatic nerve transection and nerve crush, and both have well established time courses of demyelination, immune cell influx, axonal regrowth, and remyelination. We describe the techniques of sciatic nerve surgery for transection and crush injury, together with methods for the analysis of events within peripheral nerve repair in these two models.