AUTHOR=Xu Xiao-Dong , Lin Lei , Qiu Yu-Bei , Zeng Bang-Wei , Chen Ye , Liu Jun-Le , Ye Cai-Hong , Wang Jia-Li , Liu Pei-Chang , Zhang Liang-Cheng 

TITLE=Ultrasonic visualization technique for anatomical and functional analyses of the sciatic nerve in rats

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience

VOLUME=Volume 17 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2023.1187669

DOI=10.3389/fnins.2023.1187669

ISSN=1662-453X

ABSTRACT=Ultrasound has been widely used in diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment of peripheral nerve diseases in clinical, but there is still a lack of feasibility analysis in rodent models of neurological disease. Herein, we systematically investigated the development law of sciatic nerve cross-sectional area of different genders with body weight through the ultrasound imaging anatomy of rat sciatic nerve, and the effectiveness and reliability of ultrasound-guided block around sciatic nerve in living rats were also explored. We first reported that the sciatic nerve cross-sectional area of rat was increased with age (F=89.17, P＜0.0001), males were higher than females (F=60.77, P＜0.0001), and there was positively correlated with body weight (r Male=0.8976, P<0.000, r Female=0.7733, P<0.0001). Behavioral observation of rats showed that the lower extremity complete block rate was 80% after the administration of drugs around sciatic nerve under ultrasound guidance, and staining with methylene blue occurred in all sciatic nerves and surrounding muscles and fascia of 20 ultrasound-guided injections. These results indicate that ultrasound visualization technology can be used as a new auxiliary evaluation and intervention therapy for animal models of peripheral nerve injury, and will supply overwhelming new references for the basic research of neurological diseases.