Local anaesthetic block protects against electrically-induced damage in peripheral nerve

This study is one of a series addressing the mechanisms involved in the production of neural damage caused by continuous, prolonged electrical stimulation of peripheral nerve. It has been previously shown that sustained, high frequency electrical stimulation of the cat's peroneal nerve may cause irreversible neural damage in the form of axonal degeneration of the large myelinated fibres. In this study we demonstrate that blocking the action potentials on most of the nerve fibres with local anaesthetics (10% procaine or 2% lidocaine) almost completely prevents the axonal degeneration. The abolition of axonal injury by local anaesthetic block strongly suggests that the electrically-induced damage is due to prolonged electrical excitation of axons. Furthermore, since less than complete suppression of the induced neural activity by local anaesthetic engenders essentially complete sparing of all axons, our results suggest that the damage to individual axons derives, at least in part, from stimulation-induced global changes in the nerve.