Brachial plexus repair by peripheral nerve grafts directly implanted into the contralateral spinal cord

Abstract

In the experiments reported here, the musculocutaneous nerve was repaired by peripheral nerve grafts directly implanted into the dorsal and ventral side of the contralateral spinal cord. Six months later, the brachial plexus involved was retrograde labelled with True Blue, while the contralateral side was labelled with Diamidino Yellow. Regenerated sensory ganglionic neurons were found between C3 and C8 in both sides of the spinal cord. Motoneurons were found only in the contralateral brachial plexus between C5 and C6, close to the graft implantation. No double-labelled neurons were found. Supernumerary axon regeneration from undamaged neurons was not observed in the current studies, in spite of axogenic influence of Schwann cells from the peripheral nerve grafts.