Compound Nerve Conduction Study of Rat Femoral Nerve

Kee Duk Park

Copyright ⓒ 1998. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Mar 31, 1998

Abstract

Objectives

To develop a proper electrophysiologic techniques for examining the rat femoral nerve.

Methods

10 Sprague Dawley rats were use to perform the electrophysiologic study of the exposed femoral nerves by surgical incision. Needle electrodes were used to stimulate the nerves and to obtain the compound nerve action potentials of those nerves.

Results

The normal conduction velocity of femoral nerve in this method is 35.4±5.6m/sec and the mean amplitudes of compound nerve action potentials were 40.6±32.8µV. The data of conduction velocity was quite reliable with narrow ranges of standard deviations. But the compound nerve potentials amplitudes data showed wide ranges of variations among individual rats.

Conclusion

The techniques and resultion data of femoral verve conduction of rats are described in this article. Even though this technique needs surgical incision exposing the noninvasiveness and rapid healing of the surgical wound in the rats.

This verve conduction study method of examining femoral nerve in rats is relatively easy, accurate and repeatable techniques that permits visual and microscopic observation of the exposed nerves during the nerve conduction study.

Keywords: Rat; Nerve conduction study; Femoral nerve