Design and fabrication of a nerve-stretching device for mechanotransduction of peripheral nerve fibers.

The potential of peripheral nerves to regenerate under the effect of axial tensile forces was not previously extensively explored due to the lack of capabilities of translating axonal stretch-growth to studies, until the development of a . The , which we have designed and manufactured recently, is a device that uses a controlled amount of axial tensile force (vacuum/negative gauge pressure) applied directly to a sectioned peripheral nerve to expedite nerve regrowth rate. Using this platform, a series of experiments was carried out to observe the effect of axial stretch on axonal lengthening. During these experiments, a few challenges necessitated redesigning the device like a sudden loss of stretching force due to vacuum leakage, erroneous feedback from vacuum sensor due to sensor drift, and inability to control and operate the device remotely. Here we present an improved design of the along with its integration with a state-of-the-art online vacuum monitoring facility to control, collect, process, and visualize negative gauge pressure data in real-time.