Blast-induced axonal degeneration in the rat cerebellum in the absence of head movement

Abstract

Blast exposure can injure brain by multiple mechanisms, and injury attributable to direct effects of the blast wave itself have been difficult to distinguish from that caused by rapid head displacement and other secondary processes. To resolve this issue, we used a rat model of blast exposure in which head movement was either strictly prevented or permitted in the lateral plane. Blast was found to produce axonal injury even with strict prevention of head movement. This axonal injury was restricted to the cerebellum, with the exception of injury in visual tracts secondary to ocular trauma. The cerebellar axonal injury was increased in rats in which blast-induced head movement was permitted, but the pattern of injury was unchanged. These findings support the contentions that blast per se, independent of head movement, is sufficient to induce axonal injury, and that axons in cerebellar white matter are particularly vulnerable to direct blast-induced injury.

Stress hyperglycemia exacerbates inflammatory brain injury after stroke

“…Control sections were prepared omitting either primary or secondary antibodies. In some cases antibody binding was visualized by the diaminobenzidine method (62) rather than with fluorescent secondary antibodies. For all histochemical quantifications, both the person taking the photographs and the person analyzing the images were blinded to the treatment condition.…”