Sensory regeneration in dorsal root avulsion.

Abstract

Brachial as well as lumbosacral plexus avulsion injuries are usually caused by high kinetic traumas, such as car-pedestrian, car and motorcycle accidents or falls from great heights. Traction forces affecting the head and shoulders or extremities pull the spinal nerve sleeves away from the spinal cord and rupture the postganglionic spinal root from the cord. In so called central avulsion injuries, the spinal root is avulsed at the interface between the central and peripheral nervous system (CNS and PNS). This results not only in the disconnection of the root from the cord but also in a longitudinal spinal cord injury. The complexity of the injury leads to degeneration of the spinal root and a marked inflammatory response of the spinal cord followed by the formation of a glial scar (Kachramanoglou et al., 2011).