When repairing nerves with adhesives, most researchers place glue directly on the nerve stumps, but this method does not ifx the nerve ends well and allows glue to easily invade the nerve ends. In this study, we established a rat model of completely transected sciatic nerve injury and re-paired it using a modiifed 1 cm-length conduit with inner diameter of 1.5 mm. Each end of the cylindrical conduit contains a short linear channel, while the enclosed central tube protects the nerve ends well. Nerves were repaired with 2-octyl-cyanoacrylate and suture, which complement the function of the modiifed conduit. The results demonstrated that for the same conduit, the av-erage operation time using the adhesive method was much shorter than with the suture method. No signiifcant differences were found between the two groups in sciatic function index, motor evoked potential latency, motor evoked potential amplitude, muscular recovery rate, number of medullated nerve fibers, axon diameter, or medullary sheath thickness. Thus, the adhesive method for repairing nerves using a modiifed conduit is feasible and effective, and reduces the operation time while providing an equivalent repair effect.

Peripheral nerve injury is a serious problem affecting signiifcantly patients’ life. Autografts are the“gold standard” used to repair the injury gap, however, only 50% of patients fully recover from the trauma. Artiifcial conduits are a valid alternative to repairing peripheral nerve. They aim at conifning the nerve environment throughout the regeneration process, and providing guidance to axon outgrowth. Biocompatible materials have been carefully designed to reduce inlfamma-tion and scar tissue formation, but modiifcations of the inner lumen are still required in order to optimise the scaffolds. Biomicking the native neural tissue with extracellular matrix ifllers or coatings showed great promises in repairing longer gaps and extending cell survival. In addition, extracellular matrix molecules provide a platform to further bind growth factors that can be released in the system over time. Alternatively, conduit ifllers can be used for cell transplantation at the injury site, reducing the lag time required for endogenous Schwann cells to proliferate and take part in the regeneration process. This review provides an overview on the importance of ex-tracellular matrix molecules in peripheral nerve repair.