Models have been devised and characterized in the laboratory rat for studying the neuropathology of subarachnoid hemorrhage. Several ways of injecting blood via different routes have been tried; cortical subarachnoid administration is the most reproducible suitable model. The location of injected blood was detected in histological sections. In this rat model for subarachnoid hemorrhage, the arterial blood pressure and the intracranial pressure did not elevate significantly, and the influence of major ischemic components in the development of brain edema could also be ruled out. Measurements performed on the water, electrolyte, and albumin contents of brain tissue have clearly indicated that the brain edema developing in the acute stage of rat experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage could be classified as having a primarily vasogenic component as well. These findings may have implications in the treatment of subarachnoid hemorrhage.
The high sensitivity of the magnesium-dithizonate silver-dithizonate (MDSD) staining procedure makes this method very suitable for the histochemical localization of copper in different regions of the central nervous system of adult rats. In the telencephalon (bulbus olfactorius, nucleus caudatus-putamen, septum pellucidum and area dentata), diencephalon (nucleus habenulae medialis, nuclei of the hypothalamus in the vicinity of the third ventricle, and corpus mamillare), mesencephalon (substantia nigra), cerebellum (mainly in the nodulus), pons (locus coeruleus, nucleus vestibularis), medulla oblongata (nucleus tractus solitarii) and spinal cord, the glial cells exhibit specific copper staining. The glial cells of some circumventricular organs (e.g. the subfornical organ) are also stained using the MDSD method. The significant staining observed in white-matter glial cells (e.g. in the corpus callosum, cerebellum and spinal cord) further indicates the very high sensitivity of this method. In glial cells of the same regions, the presence of copper can likewise be demonstrated using the modified sulphide silver method. On the basis of the present histochemical results, it is suggested that copper may play an important role in the normal physiological functioning of glial cells and also, via glial-neuron interactions, in neuronal processes.
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