Light microscopic response of neuronal somata, dendrites and axons to post-mortem concussive head injury

Forty anesthetized rats were cooled below 3 degrees C by 30-min transcardial perfusion of chilled physiological saline before a concussive head injury. The animals were then perfusion-fixed with a buffered formaldehyde-glutaraldehyde solution. Another forty rats were fixed by 30-min transcardial perfusion of the same fixative before a similar concussive head injury. In brain sections of both groups of animals a new silver method stained, in a Golgi-like fashion, a number of neurons and long axonal segments scattered among unstained ones. The similarity between these findings and those obtained following in vivo concussive head injuries described in accompanying papers suggests that the formation of traumatically induced argyrophilic neuronal damage is independent of metabolic processes, i.e., it may be a primary morphopathological process.