Peripheral nerve maturation and excitability properties from early childhood: Comparison of motor and sensory nerves

•Understanding maturation is essential to interpret paediatric nerve studies.•Standardised pattern of axonal maturation is observed in motor and sensory axons.•Biophysical differences occur in sensory axons from early childhood. Understanding of maturational properties of sensory and motor axons is of central importance for determining the impact of nerve changes in health and in disease in children and young adults. This study investigated maturation of sensory axons using axonal excitability parameters of the median nerve in 47 children, adolescents and young adults (25 males, 22 females; age range 1–25 years) and compared them to concurrent motor studies. The overall pattern of sensory maturation was similar to motor maturation demonstrating prolongation of the strength duration time constant (P