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Recovery of Electromyographic Activity After Transection and Surgical Repair of the Rat Sciatic Nerve

¹Department of Cell Biology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia; ²Wadsworth Center, Laboratory of Nervous System Disorders, New York State Department of Health; and ³Department of Biomedical Sciences, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, New York

Submitted 27 September 2006; accepted in final form 16 November 2006

The recovery of soleus (SOL), gastrocnemius (GAS), and tibialis anterior (TA) electromyographic activity (EMG) after transection and surgical repair of the sciatic nerve was studied in Sprague–Dawley rats using chronically implanted stimulation and recording electrodes. Spontaneous EMG activity in SOL and GAS and direct muscle (M) responses to posterior tibial nerve stimulation persisted for 2 days after sciatic nerve transection, but SOL and GAS H-reflexes disappeared immediately. Spontaneous EMG activity began to return 2–3 wk after transection, rose nearly to pretransection levels by 60 days, and persisted for the duration of the study period (120 days). Recovery of stimulus-evoked EMG responses began about 30 days after sciatic nerve transection as multiple small responses with a wide range of latencies. Over time, the latencies of these fractionated responses shortened, their amplitudes increased, and they merged into a distinct short-latency component (the putative M response) and a distinct long-latency component (the putative H-reflex). The extent of recovery of stimulation-evoked EMG was modest: even 100 days after sciatic nerve transection, the responses were still much smaller than those before transection. Similar gradual development of responses to posterior tibial nerve stimulation was also seen in TA, suggesting that some regenerating fibers sent branches into both tibial and common peroneal nerves.