Refined model of common peroneal nerve injury and regeneration: A neurophysiological, morphometric, and functional analysis in the adult rat

The common peroneal nerve lesion induces a specific peripheral nerve injury, characterized by a specific motor deficit with little animal burden. Although, it has been described in the 1980s, there is a lack of consistent outcome measurements in the literature. This study presents a refined common peroneal nerve injury model in Sprague Dawley rats with crush or transection injury. It introduces a morphometric muscle analysis, a refined videometric gait analysis and isometric force measurement, as well as testing the validity of outcome measures. The tibialis anterior muscle exhibited the largest physiological cross-sectional area, the highest muscle volume and wet weight. Crush injury showed significantly higher gait regeneration, a stronger twitch force and greater muscle masses compared to nerve transection. The introduced model offers shorter regeneration time, muscle-sparing access, and a high test validity for muscle mass, joint angle analysis, and isometric twitch force.