lecture 5 Flashcards
nervous system injury and repair
In what way are neurons fragile cells?
- energy demand high
- obligate aerobic metabolism (O2 critical)
- totally dependent on glucose supply (via blood)
- Brain (2% of body) gets 15% of blood
- loss of O2 for a few minutes, glucose for 10-15 min, is fatal to neurons
What is the most vulnerable part of the neuron?
the axon
What do nervous system injuries often involve?
- axons: trauma, demyelination
- axons are the largest and most vulnerable part of a neuron
- 20µ diameter cell and 30cm axon more like a cortical axon that will extend from the top of the head down into the neck
What is the response to damage of the nervous system?
- different outcome in peripheral or central nervous system
What is axotomy?
- cutting an axon
What happens when we cut an axon?
- gives a distal segment and a proximal stump
- result of cutting an axon in periphery is Wallerian degeneration (loss of peripheral (distal) part)
What occurs in Wallerian degeneration I?
- severed axon degenerates and is phagocytosed (4 days)
- chromatolysis of cell body (swelling, loss of organelles
- neuron can die or survive
What occurs during Wallerian degeneration II?
- if it survives, the axon sprouts (1-3 days)
- sprouts can reconnect to target (if axon is in the peripheral nervous system)
What occurs during Wallerian degeneration III?
- bad trauma leads to scarring, sprouting axon may not find its way back
- painful neuroma results - sensory endings trapped in the scar tissue that generates chronic pain
How does axon find its way back and reconnect to target cell?
- axon reconnects poorly across break
- best if cut nerve (nerve being whole structure/bundle of neurons and connective tissue) stitched back together
- sprout extends down surviving endoneurium and perineurium to target
Who is Henry Heads?
- surgeon interested in recovery from injury
- cut own nerve in arm
- recovery over 2 years mostly successful
- ’ the art of self-experimentation’
- late 1800s
What are the endoneurium and perineurium?
- outer connective tissue sheath (epineurium)
- bundles of axons wrapped in connective tissue (perineurium)
- individual axons wrapped in Schwann cells and basal lamina (endoneurium)
- hopefully when you cut a nerve you are left with the endoneurium and other connective tissue that provides a ‘runway’ or ‘track’ for a newly growing/regenerating axon to follow
What is the role of distal nerve in neuron healing?
- acts as an axon guide
- sprouting axons can grow along empty tubes formed by epi- and perineurium
- leads them to target
- crush better than cut - tubes intact all the way
What is nerve repair?
- sewing nerves together can misalign distal and proximal tubes
- sometimes a piece of nerve is destroyed
- need a bridge to guide sprouts to empty endoneural tubes
- can be nerve transplant
- can be artificial
What are important things to consider in regards to peripheral axon regeneration?
- only a minority make it back to target (10% in case of cut nerve)
- functional recovery is never perfect
- bad injuries rarely recover
- but they try
Why do cell bodies sometimes die?
- after losing an axon, neurons die by apoptosis
- apoptosis - programmed cell death
- internal biochemical cascade
- doesn’t damage surrounding cells (cf. necrosis)
What is the trigger for apoptosis?
- signal from target cell suppresses apoptosis - no signal, apoptosis occurs
- signal carried retrogradely up the axon
- cutting axon interrupts signal
- outcome depends on neuronal size and age
How does central regeneration differ from peripheral?
- cut sensory, motor and autonomic axons in the periphery can often regrow
- Axons in the CNS never regrow
What do rat spinal grafts show us?
- normal spinal projections.
- create spinal lesion in adult rat - no recovery
- graft sciatic nerve bridge across lesion, axons regrow down graft, stop at spinal cord
- this shows that it is the central nervous system environment that prevents regrowth of nerves
What are the inhibitors of CNS axon regrowth based on current understanding?
Three things
- glial scar
- lack of attractive cues/trophic factors
- central myelin is inhibitory
What is glial scarring?
- glial cells retain ability to divide
- will increase division at site of injury
- tend to fill damaged area (glial scar)
- non-neuronal cells invade (microglia, macrophages, fibroblasts)
- sprouts don’t like growing on glial scar
What are some of the known inhibitory components of scar?
- chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans (GAGs)
- remove GAGs with enzymes - glial scar no longer inhibitory
- GAGs bind signalling molecules (semaphorin 3A?)
Why do we have a lack of attractive/trophic factors in the CNS?
- in embyro, many mechanisms guided growing axon
- in adult, distances much greater, environment more complex and guidance mechanisms may be lacking
(perhaps a weaker argument for why we don’t get regeneration in CNS)
What is the evidence for myelin being inhibitory?
- central axons can regrow until myelin forms in embryo
- oligodendrocytes (myelinating glial cells of CNS) can prevent axon regrowth in vitro
- destroying myelin in rat allows functional regrowth of spinal cord axons