[Facial nerve regeneration through autologous non-nerve grafts]

This study investigated the rabbits facial nerve regeneration over a 8 mm transectional gap of the bucal branches through autologous degenerated skeletal muscle and autologous vein respectively. At 20 weeks following the implantation of the mentioned non-neural materials, all the nerve defects of the experimented animals were repaired. In the electrophysiologic indices and morphometeric analysis, the differences between the respective experimental group and the nerve autografts group had no statistical significance. The results indicated that the non-neural tissues could guide facial nerve regenerating effectively, which suggested that they can be clinically practicable.