Abstract
The nervous system is a significant part of the human body, and peripheral nerve injury caused by trauma can cause various functional disorders. When the broken end defect is large and cannot be repaired by direct suture, small gap sutures of nerve conduits can effectively replace nerve transplantation and avoid the side effect of donor area disorders. There are many choices for nerve conduits, and natural materials and synthetic polymers have their advantages. Among them, the nerve scaffold should meet the requirements of good degradability, biocompatibility, promoting axon growth, supporting axon expansion and regeneration, and higher cell adhesion. Polymer biological scaffolds can change some shortcomings of raw materials by using electrospinning filling technology and surface modification technology to make them more suitable for nerve regeneration. Therefore, polymer scaffolds have a substantial prospect in the field of biomedicine in future. This paper reviews the application of nerve conduits in the field of repairing peripheral nerve injury, and we discuss the latest progress of materials and fabrication techniques of these polymer scaffolds.
Highlights
Peripheral nerve injury (PNI) is a frequently occurring disease, which means that the peripheral nerve plexus, nerve trunk, or its branches are damaged by an external force
Peripheral nerves have a significant ability to regenerate after injury, long-term nerve defects after peripheral nerve injury (PNI) are a challenge to entire recovery [5]
Some natural proteins, polysaccharides can be used to manufacture biological scaffolds, such as silk fibroin, spider silk protein, keratin, and alginate, which are similar to nerve conduits made by extracellular matrix components
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The incidence of new peripheral nerve injury is increasing worldwide, and about one million patients need peripheral nerve surgery every year [1]. From 1% to 3% of trauma patients will have an injury involving a peripheral nerve [3,4]. Functional recovery of peripheral nerve injury is a slow process. The development of polymer nerve conduits to enhance nerve repair remains an important research area, and future clinical developments in the area of nerve regeneration and repair could potentially improve patient outcomes. This paper reviews the applications of different polymer scaffold nerve conduits in peripheral nerve injury, discusses the possible reasons, advantages, and disadvantages of each material in promoting nerve functional rehabilitation, and puts forward a possible direction for developing nerve repair materials in the future
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
