Figure 2. Selective sciatic motor neuron labeling for assessment of relative axonal misdirection.

For demonstration purposes, representative coronal cut hemi-cord examples (stacks of all spinal cord sections of a single animal from each group) show the disorganization of labeled neurons after more severe nerve injuries, compared to Sham _s (stack of all 6 sham cords used to define the reference boundaries). FB (blue) or Di-I (yellow) labeled cells outside the reference bounds have axons misdirected respectively to the MG or sural nerves. Caudal sciatic pool boundaries were aligned to overlay the Sham _s group pool reference grid for the determination of motor neurons with misdirected axons (500µm scale bar).