Article

Clinical interventions to restore standing or stepping by using nerve cuff
stimulation require a detailed knowledge of femoral nerve neuroanatomy. We
harvested eight femoral nerves with all distal branches and characterized the
branching patterns and diameters. The fascicular representation of each distal
nerve was identified and traced proximally to create fascicle maps of the
compound femoral nerve in four cadaver specimens. Distal nerves were consistently
represented as individual fascicles or distinct groups of fascicles in the
compound femoral nerve. Branch-free length of the compound femoral nerve was 1.50
+/- 0.47 cm (mean +/- standard deviation). Compound femoral nerve cross sections
were noncircular with major and minor diameters of 10.50 +/- 1.52 mm and 2.30 +/-
0.63 mm, respectively. In vivo intraoperative measurements in six subjects were
consistent with cadaver results. Selective stimulation of individual muscles
innervated by the femoral nerve may therefore be possible with a single neural
prosthesis able to selectively stimulate individual groups of fascicles.

Langue : ANGLAIS