Introduction: Traumatic facial nerve injury is an important cause of facial paralysis, which causes many adverse effects, such as facial muscle dysfunction or loss, mouth askew, etc. Promoting targeted neural regeneration at the crushed site of facial nerve could be important for the repair. According to the result of our experiment that neurotrophic factor 3 fused with a collagen-binding domain (CBD-NT3) can bind to collagen specifically to exert the neurotrophic effect on promoting axonal regeneration. To evaluate the effects of CBD-NT3 inducing facial nerve regeneration and functional recovery, observe the effects of CBD- NT3 factors contrasted with NAT- NT3 to the facial nerve function recovery, electrophysiological testing, axons and myelin changes.
Methods: By using the rat facial nerve crushed injury model, we injected in epineurium with CBD- NT3, NAT- NT3 and PBS (control group) respectively.
Results: After four weeks, we have found CBD- NT3 is better in promoting the ordered growth of axons, and improving the nerve functional recovery in the rat facial nerve crushed model.
Conclusions: The NT3 greatly enhanced the facial nerve regeneration and functional recovery.
Patient Care: Find a better factor improving facial nerve regeneration