[Ultrastructure of the cerebral cortex in the rat after the effect of electromagnetic impulse]

In mature rats an area on the head has been subjected to a single radiation for 1.5 sec with microwaves in the continuous regimen of generation, frequency 2.4 GHz level of the specific absorbed power 5 W/g, that is accompanied with appearance of convulsions. Under anesthesia specimens of the superficial layer of the cerebral superlateral part are taken and subjected to electron microscopical investigation. Immediately after radiation and in 2 h certain disorders in microcirculation and reactive changes of mitochondria in perikaryons, axons, dendrites, synapses of the neurons and in gliocytes are revealed. The mitochondrial changes are designated as "edematous". In 2 and 6 h in karyoplasm of some neurons membranous structures appear; they are interpreted as a result of heat denaturation of the nuclear proteins. In synapses, together with lesions of mitochondria, synaptic complexes undergo destruction and osmiophilic substance is accumulated in the subsynaptic zone along the whole length of the contact. In one day, essential destructive changes are revealed as severe lesions of some neurons, vacuolization and destruction of mitochondria, localized in all the structures. Pathogenesis of the neurological disturbances is based on disturbances of interneuronal interactions, connected with an immediate heat effect of the electromagnetic radiation on the structures responsible for the synaptic transmission and with a rapidly developing tissue hypoxia as a consequence of microcirculatory disturbance and a sharp inhibition of energetic metabolism.