Summary
This study describes reduced motor nerve conduction velocity and increased resistance to hypoxia-induced conduction failure in sciatic nerves of rats after four weeks of streptozotocin-induced diabetes (both effects were significant at p <0.05). These changes occurred in the absence of any deficit in the steady-state ouabain-sensitive adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) activity of sciatic nerve endoneurial homogenates. The addition of 10 nmol/l insulin to endoneurial homogenates from control animals resulted in a 34% increase in ouabain-sensitive ATPase activity and a 19% reduction in ouabain-insensitive ATPase activity (both p <0.01). This stimulation of ouabain-sensitive ATPase activity by insulin did not occur in homogenates from diabetic rats. Treating diabetic rats daily with the aldose reductase inhibitor, imirestat (1 mg/kg) improved nerve conduction velocity (p <0.05) but was without effect upon the resistance to hypoxic conduction blockade or the deficit in insulin-stimulated oubain-sensitive ATPase activity. These data suggest that in streptozotocin-diabetic rats the functional disorders of reduced motor nerve conduction velocity and increased resistance to hypoxic conduction blockade do not share a common aetiology and that impaired nerve conduction is not related to reduced maximal potential oubain-sensitive ATPase activity.
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Carrington, A.L., Ettlinger, C.B., Calcutt, N.A. et al. Aldose reductase inhibition with imirestat — effects on impulse conduction and insulin-stimulation of Na+/K+-adenosine triphosphatase activity in sciatic nerves of streptozotocin-diabetic rats. Diabetologia 34, 397–401 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403177
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00403177