The purpose of this work was to study nervous regeneration through neurons counts by comparing two surgical techniques for addressing nervous gaps on 15 rats' lower limbs. Initially, a 12-mm long vein tube from the left outer jugular was obtained, and then both lower limbs are operated, exposing the tibial nerve at each side and performing a resection of an 8-mm nerve segment, at the same time simulating a gap and an autogenous nerve graft. Left gap repair consisted of a usual conventional graft for nervous injury repair by means of microsurgical suture. The gap repair on right lower limbs was made through quadriceps muscle, treated with liquid nitrogen, covered with an 8-mm tube of jugular vein. After four months, the animals were submitted to a new surgery for exposing tibial nerves to the Fluoro-Gold® neuronal marker. After 48 hours, the rats were perfused and medullar segment between L3 and S1 was removed and subsequently cut into 40µm sections. Neurons on all sections were counted, and no statistical differences were found between both surgical techniques.
autologous graft; Peripheral nerves; Cell count; Wistar rats
