• Rosana Macher Teodori, Joice Betini, Larissa Salgado de Oliveira, Luciane Lobato Sobral, Sibele Yoko Mattozo Takeda, and Maria Imaculada de Lima Montebelo.
• Master's Program in Physioterapy, Neuromuscular Plasticity Laboratory, FACIS, Methodist University of Piracicaba, 13400-911 Piracicaba, SP, Brazil. rteodori@unimep.br
• Neural Plast. 2011 Jan 1; 2011: 783901.

AbstractThere is no consensus about the best time to start exercise after peripheral nerve injury. We evaluated the morphological and functional characteristics of the sciatic nerves of rats that began to swim immediately after crush nerve injury (CS1), those that began to swim 14 days after injury (CS14), injured rats not submitted to swimming (C), and uninjured rats submitted to swimming (S). After 30 days the number of axons in CS1 and CS14 was lower than in C (P < 0.01). The diameter of axons and nerve fibers was larger in CS1 (P < 0.01) and CS14 (P < 0.05) than in C, and myelin sheath thickness was lower in all crushed groups (P < 0.05). There was no functional difference between CS1 and CS14 (P > 0.05). Swimming exercise applied during the acute or late phase of nerve injury accelerated nerve regeneration and synaptic elimination after axonotmesis, suggesting that exercise may be initiated immediately after injury.

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