Immunohistochemical studies on early changes of components of the nervous system after head injury and application to forensic diagnosis

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1. Immunohistochemical studies on axonal injury after head trauma: Further studies were performed to determine whether immunostaining for neuron-specific enolase (NSE) can detect early post-traumatic axonal changes. NSE as well as amyloid precursor protein (APP) could label so-called axonal bulbs and swollen axons in cases with only 1.5 hours' survival after head trauma, so that NSE should be one of useful markers for detection of early axonal changes.2. Changes of astrocytes after brain injury: Antibodies against glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), S100 protein, vimentin, laminin and glutamine synthetase (GS) were used. Immunostaining for GFAP and S100 labelled both reactive astrocytes in cases of head injury with more than 7 days' survival and swollen astrocytes in cases with 9 hours' to 7 days' survival. Further, in cases with less than 1.5 hours' survival, clasmatodendrosis and pyknosis of the nucleus were detected by GFAP and S100 staining. Immunostaining for vimentin, laminin and GS also labelled these astrocytes, suggesting that immunostaining for astrocytes should be useful for evaluating early brain damage after head injury.3. Changes of oligodendrocytes after brain injury: Immnostaining for CNPase label oligodendrocytes of head trauma, though did not label cells of control brain. Therefore it is suggested that CNPase staining is very useful for detection of early oligodendrocytic changes after head injury.4. Changes of microglia after brain injury: Lectin staining for Ricinus Communis agglutinin-1 (RCA1) labelled so-called foamy cells in cases of head injury with more than 2 weeks' survival and hypertrophic microglia in cases with more than 9 hours' survival, so that lectin staining for RCA1 may be useful for estimating the duration of posttraumatic survival.