Traumas or surgical procedures can damage the body’s peripheral nerves, resulting in gaps between the nerves that impair movement and daily life. Peripheral nerves do have the ability to slowly regenerate across small gaps with some assistance, but larger gaps from more severe injuries are more challenging to heal.
Clinicians treat large nerve gaps by transplanting nerve tissue from elsewhere in the body – called an autograft – but this approach doesn’t work for all types of injuries and can cause pain or a loss of sensation.
Building on previous work in rats, Neil Fadia and colleagues tested a synthetic conduit that can bridge large nerve gaps by guiding the regrowth of neurons. Their device is a small, tube-shaped object made of a biodegradable polyester with microspheres that release GDNF – a protein that supports the survival of neurons – embedded in the wall of the tube.
Microspheres containing a neural growth factor adhering to the nerve conduit during the manufacturing process. Image is credited to N.B. Fadia et al., Science Translational Medicine (2019).
When implanted into macaques with large nerve defects in their arms, the nerve guide boosted nerve regeneration and the nerves’ ability to conduct signals over the course of a year.
The animals that received the conduits recovered their motor skills as well as those treated with autografts and showed superior recruitment of cells that sheathe neurons in myelin, an important protein that insulates nerves.
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Image Source:
The image is credited to N.B. Fadia et al., Science Translational Medicine (2019).
