Human Ulnar Nerve Microstructure Visualization

Background:The nerve repair and regeneration after injury have always been a focus in the field of orthopedics.However,it is very difficult to improve the result of functional recovery.The main reason lies in the wrong anastomose of nerve fibers between sense and motor ones.The injury of ulnar nerve is one of very common disease in orthopaedic clinic.It usually results to limb disability and severely affects the life quality of patient.And it is a very ideal condition to anastomose the same kinds of nerve fibers together that demand more precised study on the character and location of fascicular anatomy.So it is an urgent problem to precised show the complex three-dimensional structure of nerve fascicless and fibers inside the ulnar nerve in this domain that the nerve bundles inside nerve trunk mix,intercross and merge one another in their function and character.Traditional nerve atlas obtained through gross anatomy and histological methods contains only two-dimensional information which can not show the real cross and recombination process of nerve bundles in its whole length.The report of three-dimensional reconstruction of microstructure inside human peripheral nerve has hardly been seen.The digital virtual human project has a very important sense.However,it is very difficult to reconstruct the three-dimensional structure of nerve system.So an effective method of catching nerve information is urgently demanded.Objective:To explore the application of 3D Nerve visualization system in processing two-dimensional image information of human ulnar nerve acquired by series freezing tissue section,staining and scanning.And to draw the three-dimensional anatomical atlas of human ulnar nerve through 3D Nerve visualization system.Methods:One ulnar nerve was taken from a fresh cadaver.After marked with human hair and embedded in OCT,series freezing tissue sections were made and were stained with AChe histochemically.Series two-dimensional image information was obtained through high resolution scanner.Then the microstructure of ulnar nerve was reconstructed with 3D Nerve visualization system.Results:Numbers,positions and character of the internal nerve fibers differ from different cross sections of ulnar nerve.The microstructure of ulnar nerve can be observed in magnifying visual field at any cross section after reconstructed in 3D Nerve system,which makes it possible to track stereo courser of fasciculus.Conclusions:This research has successfully completed the three-dimensional visualization of ulnar nerve from serial tissue sections in the world,explored a practical method for three-dimensional visualization of microstructure inside human peripheral nerve and had a beneficial attempt to the construction of the peripheral nerve model of Chinese Visual Human Project.The microstructure of fasciculus inside ulnar nerve is very complex and formed a special reticulate structure of fasciculus.Reconstructed ulnar nerve can show exactly the 3D stereo structures of the fasciculus.Moreover,it can show the rules of the regrouping and redistribution of the fasciculus.In addition,nerve trunk and the stereo behavior of each fasciculus can be showed independently and can also be combined to show.Thirdly,it is possible to hide other structures and thus trace single fasciculus or the whole ulnar nerve trunk. Fourthly,the reconstructed ulnar nerve can rotate at any angle along any axis with different velocities,which can help us to observe the shape,position and relationships of fasciculus from different positions.So the complex stereo structures of fasciculus can be showed dynamically.Finally,3D Nerve visualization system makes it possible to cut the nerve at any angle at any transverse section and to observe microstructure of ulnar nerve at magnifying vision.