The relevance of studies of CNS damage due to ethanol is beyond doubt [4]. Forensic medical practice currently uses a gas-liquid chromatography method for the evaluation of ethanol poisoning (EP) by assaying ethanol concentrations, usually in two biological fl uids: blood and urine. However, the approved method used in practice assesses EP only in terms of the blood ethanol concentration (BEC). Assessment of the extent of EP based only on BEC, without assessment of urinary ethanol concentrations (UEC) and internal organ ethanol concentrations may not be reliable [1].A number of investigators [5,6] have identifi ed parts of the brain most sensitive to alcoholemia and have noted changes to both the gray matter and the white matter, apparent as decreases in the numbers of neurons, alterations in their shapes, increases in the numbers of oligodendrocytes, and changes in neuron-glial ratios. A link was found between histological changes in the human brain with BEC and UEC, with the possibility of assessing these values [2], along with an overall measure of concentrations with a precision of up to 2‰, allowing EP to be assessed even when blood and urine levels are not measured [3]. However, this value has a 1.5 times longer scale than the usual BEC, which may disorient investigators. Furthermore, it is a product and yields a value of 0 if one factor is 0, even if the other is signifi cant, leading to loss of information. These disadvantages are not present in an indicator consisting of the mean square of the BEC and UEC values (MSEC). It remains for morphological practice to determine the selection of any analytical solution.The aim of the present work was to study the link between morphological changes in the brain and MSEC, to improve the evaluation of EP and fi nd new predictors of EP. Materials and MethodsWe used specimens from 40 corpses (10 women and 30 men) aged 20-81 (mean 49 ± 1) years 12-48 h after death, obtained from the Rybinsk Interregional Depart ment, Regression analysis of the connections between changes in histological brain structures (neurons, neuroglia, and microvessels) and the extent of poisoning with ethanol (blood and urine ethanol concentrations) was performed. Specimens were obtained from 40 male and female corpses aged 20-81 years. Decreases in microvessel diameter in the cerebral cortex and cerebellum and increases in microvessel diameter in the white matter, along with increases in the numbers of vessels with stasis, in the numbers of astrocytes with cytoplasmic granularity, and in various signs of cerebral edema, as well as decreases in the numbers of astrocyte processes and the ability of erythrocytes in the stasis zone to stain with glycine cresol stain, were found to correlate with the mean square ethanol concentration (MSEC) in blood and urine. This allows this parameter to be assessed in histological studies of the brain. Conversely, knowledge of MSEC allows the presence of certain histological changes in the brain to be evaluated.
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