Collateral Nerve Sprouts produced Experimentally

Abstract

WHEN a region loses all or part of its nerve supply, surviving axons in the vicinity may give off collaterals or side branches that take over the supply of the denervated elements. It may be of great clinical significance that nerve sprouting can bring about functional recovery long before this could be achieved by the process of classical regeneration. Collateral nerve sprouting was demonstrated first in somatic motor nerves¹, later in somatic sensory nerves². More recently, Murray and Thompson³ have provided strong physiological evidence that collateral sprouting of axons can occur in autonomic pathways. It can be presumed that all peripheral nervous system axons have collateral nerve sprouting potential. Is this potential characteristic also of mature mammalian central nervous system axons ? Windle in his review of the work done by Liu and Chambers states that the possibility does exist⁴.