Studies of Rat Limb and Peripheral Nerve Regeneration.

When small 10-100nA D.C. Fields and pulsed magnetic fields are applied to amputated rat forelimbs and severed sciatic nerves, regeneration is induced in the limbs, and significantly speeded in nerves. The D.C. fields are necessary to introduce polarization and organization to the regenerated limb tissues, while the pulsed magnetic fields initiate and maintain cellular proliferation, thus ensuring sufficient tissue to form wristlike or handlike structures. At present, the results do not lead to complete limbs only to extensions of the radius and ulna, plus joints, muscle, nerves, and other structures resembling normal hand and wrist structures. In some instances, the regenerates are composed almost entirely of very large amounts of cancellous bone. This is true when the strongest magnetic fields are combined with D.C. This observation may be important, in that it suggests a means for producing very rapid fracture healing. The results with the nerve regeneration experiments suggest that very rapid and almost complete regeneration can be induced by the same treatment used to induce limb regeneration, except that the D.C. field must be kept small 10nA to prevent the accumulation of extraordinarily large amounts of connective tissue, which interfaces with the invasion of the distal segment of the severed nerve by regenerating axons. Analysis of the data by computerized image analysis and bu computer comparison of compound action potentials is currently underway, and will be reported in subsequent technical reports. Author