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Have you ever heard of a nerve conduit? It's supposed to help nerves grow back. How does it work?

A nerve conduit is a fairly new surgical technique under investigation for nerve injuries. The conduit (also referred to as an artificial nerve graft) uses synthetic materials to create a guided pathway for nerve tissue growth. The nerve ends and gap between the ends are enclosed within a tube composed of biological or synthetic materials like silicone. The nerve conduit is being tried for patients with large distances between the two ends of the torn nerve. The distance is too great to use direct suturing of the two stumps of a severed nerve. While the two severed ends of nerves could be stretched to meet each other, it can't be done without tension. Sometimes autologous nerve grafting is possible. The surgeon uses some of the patient's own nerve tissue to fill in the gap. But there is limited availability of donor tissue. And functional recovery in autologous nerve grafting isn't always so great. That's why surgeons started looking at ways to engineer artificial nerve tissue. The development of bioartificial nerve guidance conduits as an alternative treatment for large defects may be a major breakthrough discovery. This approach has worked for small sensory nerves that have been injured but its use with mixed (sensory and motor) function is still being studied.

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