Noninvasive Repeatable Motor and Sensory Nerve Conduction Studies of Rat Peripheral Nerves

There has been a need for animal experimental models to study the peripheral nerves to evalute the peripheral neuropathy. However, electrophysiologic test methods to confirm peripheral neuropathy in small experimental animals has not been properly addressed due to technical difficulties and also the limitation of numbers of examinations due to the invasive natures of previous techniques of peripheral nerve conduction studies in experimental animals.

The purpose of this experiment is to find out easy, reliable and noninvasive repeatable technical of nerve conduction study of peripheral nerves of rat.

The electrophysiologic tests including motor and sensory nerve conduction studies were performed in both hind limbs of 64 rats. And the results were reported with detailed description of techniques. The mean value(±SD) of motor nerve conduction velocity was 41.8±3.0m/sec and that of the sendory nerve conduction velocity was 29.7±1.7m/sec and they showed stable results. In addition to its accuracy, this technique is a relatively simple and nonivasive repeatable methods of nerve conduction study of rat. But the amplitudes of compound muscle action potential(CMAP) and compound nerve action potential(CNAP) revealed wide ranges of variability.