To Örebro University

We have characterized the evolving morphological changes in the adult rat spinal cord following photochemically induced spinal cord ischemia. In cresyl violet-stained sections, disintegration of the tissue at the epicenter was evident at 6 h. This was preceded at 1 h post ischemia by an albumin immunoreactivity. The albumin immunoreactivity was increased at 6 and even more so at 24 h post ischemia. At 72 h post ischemia the albumin immunoreactivity was decreased. The size of the lesion was established by 3 days after the onset of ischemia. During the 1st week post ischemia, neurofilament (NF) immunohistochemistry showed swollen axons adjacent to the injured tissue. From 2 weeks post ischemia an increasing number of regrowing NF-immunoreactive axons could be seen in the center of the necrotic cavity. At 3 weeks after ischemia, a developing gliosis was observed around and rostral to the lesion cavity, as evidenced by increased glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) immunoreactivity. The gliosis became more pronounced until 6 weeks post ischemia, at which time enlarged GFAP-immunoreactive cells could be seen in the remaining viable tissue bordering the necrotic areas. In this study we show that several traits in the development of a spinal cord lesion after photochemically induced ischemia are similar to those described previously after traumatic spinal cord lesions.