Ganglioside treatment and nerve regeneration: a morphological study after nerve crush in rats.

The left sciatic nerve of male Wistar rats was crushed by a standardized technique. From the day of the nerve crush onwards the rats were given a daily subcutaneous injection of 50 mg/kg of a ganglioside mixture. The controls were given an equal volume of phosphate buffer. Morphometric analysis of the sciatic nerve was carried out on days 11 and 15 after the nerve crush. The number of nerve fibres in the rats treated with gangliosides was larger than in the controls on both days and cross-sections through the regenerating fibres showed larger areas of axon and myelin. These differences were statistically significant (P less than 0.05) for most parameters.