Y. Nakao et al., VASCULAR-PERMEABILITY CHANGES ASSOCIATED WITH EXPERIMENTALLY-INDUCED FACIAL-NERVE LESIONS IN THE RABBIT, European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology, 252(4), 1995, pp. 255-257
Changes in vascular permeability to sodium fluorescein following exper
imentally induced nerve lesions were examined in the rabbit facial ner
ve. Sodium fluorescein was injected intravenously as a permeability tr
acer and then localized by fluorescence microscopy. In control nerves,
endoneurium showed only slight fluorescence while intense fluorescenc
e was observed in the epineurium and perineurium. In nerves demonstrat
ing edema and Wallerian degeneration, endoneurium was found to have an
increased accumulation of tracer. This increased endoneurial vascular
permeability in facial nerve lesions may explain nerve enhancement se
en in gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging in patients with
facial nerve paralysis.