Puerarin is a natural isoflavone isolated from plants of the genus Pueraria and functions as a protector against cerebral ischemia. Can puerarin be involved in the repair of peripheral nerve injuries? Minfei Wu and co-workers from the Second Hospital of Jilin University in China verified that puerarin exerts an ongoing role to activate growth-associated protein 43 in the corresponding segment of the spinal cord after sciatic nerve injury, thus contributing to neural regeneration after sciatic nerve injuries. Their relevant study has been reported in the Neural Regeneration Research.
This image shows puerarin's effects on the morphology of nerve fibers of the spinal cord on the injured side at 8 weeks after sciatic nerve surgery. Luxol fast blue staining show that the myelin sheaths arranged regularly with uniform thickness and clear outline and no proliferated fibrous connective tissues were found in the middle dose groups.
(Photo Credit: Neural Regeneration Research)
Source: Neural Regeneration Research