Peripheral nerves are easily damaged, and peripheral neuropathy is a result of damage to nerves located outside of the brain and spinal cord (peripheral nerves) which often causes weakness, numbness and pain, usually in the hands and feet. Nerve crush has been performed in animal peripheral nerves, and the effect both on pain, motor function, and other aspects of peripheral nerve function has been evaluated by behavioral observation, EMG studies, and nerve histology.
For sciatic nerve crush injury, the sciatic nerve was crushed on anesthetized adult mice (8-12 weeks old) after treated with chemicals or vehicle, at the level of external rotator muscles, just distal to the sciatic notch. The exposed nerve was crushed with smooth forceps for 15 seconds. After injury, wound was sutured in two layers using 6-0 epineural suture (Ethilon) , and the mice were allowed to recover on heated pads. The surgeon who performed the surgery was blinded to the genotype.
Optical Nerve Crush
Optic nerve crush provides a clear baseline model, where little to no spontaneous remyelination occurs on regenerated axons without a remyelination treatment. This method is highly reproducible and provides a consistent time course and injury region for pathology analysis, and valuable for testing treatments or manipulations of altering remyelination. Also, this method will generate quantitative data on the effectiveness of myelination treatments on rats before moving into clinical stages.