Table 1.

Static sciatic functional index

SSI		Time
		T0	T1	T2	T4	T6	T8	T10	T12	T14	T16	T18	T20
Group 1: PVA	Mean	-3.13	-40.52	-52.76	-69.60	-60.30	-56.59	-63.51	-54.89	-40.25	-44.03	-57.34	-48.23
(n = 7)	SD	24.17	19.25	17.78	9.56	19.69	13.19	8.05	11.96	13.33	9.07	21.81	7.25
Group 2: PVA-CNTs	Mean	12.10	-41.85	-45.81	-68.07	-51.18	-52.22	-49.31	-44.52	-48.73	-37.65	-38.47	-38.99
(n = 7)	SD	34.10	20.82	23.21	17.00	11.41	41.96	21.11	17.62	26.31	20.78	17.97	31.11
Group 3: PVA-PPy	Mean	5.31	-41.40	-50.95	-45.76	-47.40	-34.56	-39.51	-31.52	-32.47	-43.17	-50.00	-36.08b
(n = 7)	SD	17.51	17.52	23.99	29.92	22.53	14.00	25.05	15.10	20.78	25.52	11.77	16.09
Group 4: Graft	Mean	-6.29	-56.46	-52.18	-55.41	-63.81	-59.79	-75.56	-53.15	-64.53	-67.22	-57.95	-52.07
(n = 4)	SD	1.59	28.10	27.54	27.99	19.06	11.00	10.45	15.44	12.14	12.17	8.31	9.76
Group 5: End-to-End	Mean	-5.78	-44.21	-33.72	-58.28	-73.92	-70.22	-52.47	-68.04	-41.91	-46.56	-43.04	-59.97
(n = 5)	SD	12.91	15.34	15.72	22.25	6.82	6.44	27.43	11.02	24.55	16.79	12.31	2.64
Group 6: PVA-CNTs-MSCs	Mean	3.46	-31.48	-23.75	-28.57	-39.97	-40.30	-62.32	-34.71	-26.28	-42.87	-37.54	-36.16b
(n = 7)	SD	12.35	21.89	19.70	9.96	9.20	21.72	18.07	16.44	15.31	25.75	10.06	14.87

Static sciatic functional index (SSI) measured pre-operatively (week-0), and every week after the surgical procedure until week-20. An index score of 0 is considered normal and an index of 100 indicates total impairment. The measurements of the toe spread (TS), and the intermediary TS, were taken from the experimental (E) and normal (N) sides. Results are presented as mean and SD. n corresponds to the number of rats within the experimental group. PVA: Polyvinyl alcohol; CNTs: Carbon nanotubes; PPy: Polypyrrole; MSCs: Mesenchymal stem cells.

^bP < 0.01 vs Graft.