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. 2019 Nov 22;7:337. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2019.00337

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Copyright © 2019 Carvalho, Oliveira and Reis.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Scheme representing the neuroplasticity that occurs throughout the CNS after PNIs. (A) Healthy peripheral nerve being subjected to an injury. Immediately after the trauma, the functionality of the nerve is affected, and the correct neurotransmission is interrupted. Neuroplasticity that occurs in the CNS following PNI is thought to occur through several mechanisms, with two of the most prominent theories being: (B) Unmasking of existing synaptic connections. In this process, there is the unmasking of neural paths which were not normally used for a specific purpose, and new neural paths are activated when the normally used system fails; and (C) Sprouting of new nerve terminals, where there is collateral sprouting from intact healthy cellular components to a denervated region, in an attempt to reestablish the neuronal connection.