Somatosensory stimulation apparatus for rodent cages

Project Overview

Peripheral nerve injuries are common, debilitating and costly. Approximately 2.8%-5% of all trauma patients in the US sustain such an injury with nearly 100,000 peripheral nerve repairs being performed annually costing approximately 150 billion dollars. The most important clinical outcome following nerve repair, is functional ability, and despite advances in microsurgical technique, poor functional outcomes are frequent. Unfortunately, the cause for outcome variability is unknown and functional outcome is difficult to assess and measure experimentally.

The goal of this project is to design and validate an experimental apparatus that can provide somatosensory stimulation (i.e. vibration) to the hindlimb of a rodent would greatly improve the ability to assess nerve regeneration in rats for a wide range of studies- including but not restricted to, surgical repair methods, tissue engineering and neural interfacing.