Post-acute alterations in the axonal cytoskeleton after traumatic axonal injury

All previous analyses of axonal responses to traumatic axonal injury (TAI) have described the ultrastructure of changes in the cytoskeleton and axolemma within 6 h of injury. In the present study we tested the hypothesis that there are, in addition, ultrastructural pathological changes up to 1 week after injury. TAI was induced in the adult guinea pig optic nerve of nine animals. Three animals were killed at either 4 h, 24 h, or 7 days (d) after injury. Quantitative analysis of the number or proportion of axons within 0.5-micro m-wide bins showed an increase in the number of axons with a diameter of less than 0.5 micro m at 4 h, 24 h, and 7 d, the presence of lucent axons at 24 h and 7 d and that the highest number of injured axons occurred about half way along the length of the nerve. A spectrum of pathological changes occurred in injured fibers-pathology of mitochondria; dissociation of myelin lamellae but little damage to the axon; loss of linear register of the axonal cytoskeleton; differential responses between microtubules (MT) and neurofilaments (NF) in different sizes of axon; two different sites of compaction of NF; loss of both NF (with an increase in their spacing) and MT (with a reduction in their spacing); replacement of the axoplasm by a flocculent precipitate; and an increased length of the nodal gap. These provide the first ultrastructural evidence for Wallerian degeneration of nerve fibers in an animal model of TAI.