Termino-lateral neurorrhaphy: The functional axonal anatomy

The goal of this study was to determine the functional axonal anatomy of a termino-lateral neurorrhaphy (TLN). We hypothesize that axons populating a TLN must relinquish functional connections with their original targets prior to establishing new connections via the TLN. Two-month-old F344 rats underwent a TLN between the left peroneal nerve and a nerve graft tunneled to the contralateral hindlimb. Three months postoperatively, an end-to-end neurorrhaphy was performed between the nerve graft and the right peroneal nerve. Four months after the second operation, contractile properties and electromyographic (EMG) signals were measured in the bilateral hindlimbs. Left peroneal nerve stimulation proximal to the TLN site resulted in bilateral extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscle contractions, with significantly lower forces on the side reinnervated by TLN. Evoked EMGs demonstrated that the right and left hindlimb musculature were electrically discontinuous following TLN. These data support our hypothesis that axons can form functional connections via a TLN, but they must first relinquish functional connections with their original targets. © 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc. MICROSURGERY 20:6–14 2000Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34923/1/2_ftp.pd

Make Something Besides a Baby: Race, Gender, and Reproductive Science in 20th Century Black Women's Novels

Make Something Besides a Baby: Race, Gender, and Reproductive Science in 20th Century Black Women's Novels challenges the opposition between literature and science that has obscured the ways Black women write science and technology into their fiction. Since Black women have largely been excluded from the mainstream discursive space of medicine and science except as objects of study, turning to fiction has offered a powerful means to evidence, critique, and revise experiences of Black reproduction. In their novels, Black women claim authority over the state of Black reproduction and position themselves as arbiters of reproductive theory. I analyze the fixation on specific, historically contingent representations of reproductive science in Black women's fiction that reveal the inconsistencies and fissures in scientific discourse. I argue that these writers establish a Black feminist theory of reproductive science and technology that prioritizes Black women's reproductive experiences with, for instance, involuntary sterilization or surrogacy. In chapters on Nella Larsen, Gwendolyn Brooks, Fran Ross, Ntozake Shange, and Octavia Butler, I uncover the work these Black women writers do to theorize Black reproduction alongside and against cutting-edge science and technology. My project demonstrates how this literature resists the unsatisfying and often violent paradigm of scientific objectivity even as it articulates alternative epistemologies of scientific thought