Morphofunctional changes in spinal cord neurons after epidural lidocaine.

Morphofunctional and histoenzymological changes in spinal cord neurons of mongrel dogs were studied after epidural administration of isobaric 2% lidocaine solution. Control animals received epidural 0.9% sodium chloride. The results obtained from these studies provide evidence for the absence of pathological structural-metabolic changes in nerve tissue after treatment with lidocaine. The occurrence of certain morphofunctional rearrangements in spinal cord neurons were typical of animals of both the experimental and control groups. The changes recorded varied within the limits of physiological variation and provided evidence predominantly of the functional response of these nerve tissue structures to epidural injections of both sodium chloride and lidocaine.