Muscle-sparing approach to the peroneal nerve of the rabbit

To study nerve degeneration and regeneration the peroneal nerve of the rabb it is a rewarding experimental model. The access to the nerve should be as atraumatic as possible and no muscular tissue should be incised or transect ed in order to lower postoperative morbidity and enhance the welfare of the animals. Given such conditions it is not possible to expose the undistribu ted proximal and central parts of the peroneal nerve from the intervertebra l notch to its passage through the lateral head of the gastrocnemius muscle by a single approach, but rather a two-level incision is required. Such an approach to the peroneal nerve was carried out on 24 New Zealand White rab bits. The amount of postoperative pain was estimated by the rabbits social and feeding behaviour. The observed overall impairment was impressively low . This approach has been shown to be beneficial for the animals, and is atr aumatic and should be strongly recommended.