Morphometric study of the plasticity of nerve fibers of spared spinal dorsal root and its terminals in rats / 第三军医大学学报

ABSTRACT

The number of nerve fibers in the spared dorsal root of the L4 spinal nerve and the number of nerve terminals in the Lamina Ⅲ of the segment of the spinal cord between L2 and S1 were determined with electron microscopic morphometry,and the distribution and density of nerve fibers in the spinal cord were observed with silver staining.It was found that the distribution and density of nerve fibers in the spinal cord showed no difference between the operated and the control sides under optical microscopy;morphometric analysis revealed a significant increase of the number of unmyelinated fibers and a tendency to increase of their diameter;and the number of both simple and complex terminals in the Lamina Ⅲ of the spinal cord could return to the normal level on the 35th day after operation with a significant increase of their diameter.The importance of these changes was preliminarily discussed.