Peripheral nerve injuries are often associated with poor functional recovery, despite the capacity for Schwann cells to support regeneration. Lengthy periods of axotomy in which injured neurons remain without target connections progressively reduce regenerative capacity (Fu & Gordon 1995). It is conceivable that the frustrated growth of the axotomised tibial motoneurons (MN) in the rat is a poor model of the prolonged period of axotomy that regenerating MN experience with they are regenerating over long distances. We undertook this study to evaluate if MN that regenerate their axons but remain axotomised for 2 months (2 m AXOTOMY-REG-NO TARGET Group 1) demonstrate a poorer regenerative capacity than MN that are axotomised and are prevented from growing by capping the cut proximal nerve stump (2 m AXOTOMY- NO REG NO TARGET Group 2). The control condition was to cut and immediately suture the nerve stumps to promote muscle reinnervation (REG TARGET control). First, we cut the left femoral motor nerve (FEMn ) and capped the nerve stump (Group 1), sutured the nerve to a 4cm saphenous graft (Group 2), or resutured the cut FEMn (control). Two m later, in all 3 groups, we recut and sutured the FEMn to the distal nerve stump of the freshly severed ipsilateral saphenous to allow regeneration for 6 weeks; the regenerated MN were backlabelled with fluorogold, the spinal cords fixed and removed 6 days later for motoneuron counting. We found that there was no difference in the number of MN that regenerated axons after prolonged axotomy, whether or not the chronically axotomised MN were allowed to regenerate axons. However, this number was significantly lower than the number of MN that regenerated axons in the control condition in which MN did not experience prolonged axotomy. A period of 2 m prolonged axotomy reduced the number of MN that regenerated by 60%.