Myelinated Nerve Fixation Techniques: Problems and Comparative Morphology

Abstract

The morphology of peripheral nerve trauma is necessary to understand the resulting alterations in nerve function. Specific traumas, such as Vibration Syndrome, directly effect nerve function. Earily changes in myelinated axons closely resemble artifact damage due to preperations for electron microscopy. If the correlation between structure and function in traumatic conditions is to be studied, it is imperative to establish a fixation technique that yields consistently good results. It is also important to characterize fixation artifacts and correlate these changes to traumatic damages.Several techniques were compared in an attempt to illustrate the quality of morphology obtained from each fixation. Femoral nerve was microsurgically harvested from Sprague Dawley rats. The nerve was then cut into 1 mm segments and fixed by a variety of methods. The basic fixation was for 2.5 hr in 2.5% glutaraldehyde (GA), followed by 3 10-minute washes in 0.1 M cacodylate buffer pH 7.2, and 2.5 hr post-fixation in 1.0% OSO4 with an additional three washes in buffer.