Skeletal muscle atrophy inevitably occurs in denervated skeletal muscle, and cell apoptosis plays an important role in skeletal muscle atrophy and degeneration. The present study established rat models of simple nerve injury by transecting the ventral or dorsal spinal nerve root and observed rat skeletal muscle cell apoptosis following simple motor nerve injury versus simple sensory nerve injury. Following skeletal muscle denervation for 10 weeks, cell apoptosis was detected in skeletal muscle, which was accompanied by obvious changes in rat behavior and electrophysiological responses. In addition, changes in cross-sectional area and average gray-scale of motor endplates of the gastrocnemius muscle were analyzed following sciatic nerve injury and motor nerve injury.Cell nuclei in denervated skeletal muscle tissue were more densely arranged than in normal skeletal muscle tissue. Cell nuclei were most dense in the sciatic nerve injury group, followed by the motor nerve injury group and the sensory nerve injury group. Fas/Fast expression and the number of apoptotic cells increased in denervated skeletal muscle, and apoptosis-related changes were observed. These findings suggested that motor and sensory nerves provided trophic actions following skeletal muscle and motor nerve injury, resulting in a greater influence on skeletal muscle atrophy than sensory nerve injury. Therefore, reconstruction of motor nerves should be preferentially considered for treating denervation-induced skeletal muscle atrophy.