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     Constructing a nerve guidance channel requires 4 essential components:

• Biomaterial scaffold
• Extracellular matrix (ECM)
• Specific cell types
• Specific growth factors

Successfully incorporating these components to mimic the native nerve eliminates the costly and painful procedures needed for autologous nerve grafts. The solution sounds easy enough, however, the exact combination of each component is unknown.

     The scaffold, or tube, provides an environment that contains the ECM components, cells, and growth factors while causing little to no immune response. The ECM provides an initial substrate for cell adhesion, necessary in facilitating axonal growth. The presence of specific cell types enables the successful regeneration of axons across nerve gaps. Finally, growth factors are the extracellular signals that influence axonal regeneration.³

Figure 1. Scaffold between the proximal and distal nerve.⁶

Figure 2. Integrated nerve guidance channel.²