Surgical Management of Facial Nerve Injury

描述（由申请人提供）：面瘫是一种毁灭性的临床问题；迄今为止的管理策略仍然不够充分。长期职业目标是通过更有效地恢复面部肌肉组织有意义的运动来改善面瘫的临床治疗。 当前的基本科学目标是开发用于研究面神经再生的动物模型，控制异常再生现象（轴突错误路由到不适当的肌肉目标），并使用药理学策略加速大鼠面神经再生。长期的科学目标是在这个新开发的模型中利用新兴的周围神经再生策略来增加受伤或牺牲后到达面部肌肉组织的轴突的数量和目标准确性。联运动（面部表情过程中面部某一区域的无意识运动）的相应减少以及整体更高的神经输入将改善临床面神经结果。 临床环境是一家繁忙的三级护理医院，拥有专门的面神经中心和大量患有这种罕见疾病的患者；研究环境是初级医院和邻近医院内设备齐全、最先进的研究设施。学术环境完全致力于通过仔细的研究和勤奋的调查来推进生物医学科学和患者护理，并为受指导的研究者提供支持。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Facial paralysis represents a devastating clinical problem; management strategies to date remain inadequate. The long term career objective is to improve the clinical management of facial paralysis, by more effectively restoring meaningful movement to the facial musculature. The immediate basic scientific goals are to develop an animal model for the study of facial nerve regeneration, to control the phenomenon of aberrant regeneration (misrouting of axons to an inappropriate muscle target), and to accelerate facial nerve regeneration in the rat using pharmacologic strategies. The long range scientific goals are to utilize emerging peripheral nerve regeneration strategies in this newly developed model to increase the number and target accuracy of axons arriving in the facial musculature after injury or sacrifice. The corresponding decrease in synkinesis (unintentional movement of one region of the face during facial expression), and overall higher neural input will improve clinical facial nerve outcomes. The clinical environment is a busy tertiary care hospital with a specialized facial nerve center and a large population of patients with this uncommon disorder; the research environment is a fully equipped state of the art research facility within the primary hospital and the adjacent hospital. The academic environment is one of complete dedication to advancing both biomedical science and patient care through careful study and diligent investigation, and of support for the mentored investigator.