Abstract
The presence of nerve endings around implants is well-known, but the interaction between the peripheral nervous system and the osseointegration of implants has not been thoroughly elucidated to date. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of selective sensory denervation on early implant osseointegration. Forty male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided randomly into two groups, group A and group B, and they were treated with capsaicin and normal saline, respectively. One week later, titanium implants were placed in the bilateral femurs of the rats. Three and six weeks after implantation, histological examination, microcomputed tomography and biomechanical testing were performed to observe the effect of sensory denervation on implant osseointegration. At three weeks and six weeks, bone area, trabecular bone volume/total bone volume and bone density were significantly lower in group A than in group B. Similarly, the bone–implant contact rate, trabecular number and trabecular thickness were clearly lower in group A than in group B at three weeks. However, the trabecular separation spacing in group A was greater than that in group B at both time points. Biomechanical testing revealed that the implant-bone binding ability of group A was significantly lower than that in group B. The research demonstrated that sensory innervation played an important role in the formation of osseointegration. Selective-sensory denervation could reduce osseointegration and lower the binding force of the bone and the implant.
Highlights
Sympathetic and sensory nerves play an important role in bone metabolism
A physiological interaction between sympathetic and sensory nerves occurs in osteoclastogenesis, which is based on the effects of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a sensory neuropeptide [4,5]
The decalcified sections showed that the trabecular number in the cortical bone of the distal femoral metaphysis was lower in the sensory-denervated group than in the sensory-intact group three weeks after implantation
Summary
Sympathetic and sensory nerves play an important role in bone metabolism. In vivo and in vitro studies have demonstrated that the sympathetic nervous system is involved in increasing bone resorption and decreasing bone formation [1,2,3,4,5]. An in vitro study showed that CGRP could induce osteoclast differentiation by isoprenaline in a mouse bone marrow cell culture system [6]. The physiological role of the sensory nervous system in bone metabolism was demonstrated in vivo [5]. Studies have indicated that nerve tissue in bone is involved in bone remodelling, primarily by affecting bone cell metabolism and regulating blood flow changes in the bone [8,9]. Some studies showed that there was an association between the distribution of nerve endings in bone tissue and the activity of bone reconstruction because there were more nerve fibres in areas where bone remodelling was active [10,11]
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