Comparison of age-related peripheral nerve changes in mice housed in either plastic cages with sawdust-covered solid flooring or wire-mesh-floor cages.

A comparative histologic survey was conducted on the dorsal root, sciatic, tibial and medial plantar nerves of 90- and 110-week-old B6C3F1 female mice reared in either solid-floor cages covered in sawdust or wire-mesh-floor cages. Age-related peripheral nerve lesions, characterized by axonal degeneration and remyelination, were present in all nerves surveyed, and were especially prominent in the sciatic and medial plantar nerves at 110 weeks of age but, there were no differences associated with the type of cage floor in clinical signs, grasping power of the fore- and hind-limbs, motor nerve conduction velocity or histopathologic findings at these ages.