KHALILI M, CLOWER B R. CORRELATION BE TWEEN ENDOTHELIAL INJURY AND CEREBRAL VASOSPASM FOLLOWING A DOUBLE SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE IN THE RAT. Med J Islam Repub Iran 2001; 15 (2) :93-101
URL:
http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/article-1-810-en.html
From the Department of Anatomy, Yazd University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, I.R. Iran , Khalili59@hotmail.com
Abstract: (4738 Views)
While a wide array of pathological changes occur in cerebral arteries following
subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), the most consistent is endothelial damage.
Since the endothelium normally modulates reflexes that influence vascular tone,
any damage to it may represent a significant contributor to cerebral vasospasm
following SAH.
This experimental study investigates the correlation between endothelial injury
of rat basilar (BA) and middle cerebral arteries (MCA) and vasospasm following
a double SAH.
Animals were divided into three groups of control (nonsurgical-noninjected),
saline-injected, and blood-injected rats. Rats in the blood-injected group were
injected with two 0.3 mL doses of autologous blood into the subarachnoid space
at intervals of 72 hours. Rats were killed at different time intervals to study the
time course of endothelial injury along with vasospasm following the second SAH
with scanning electron microscopy and image analysis system, respectively. Cerebral
arteries exposed to blood demonstrated severe pathological alterations during
acute (30 min. to 2 hrs.) and chronic (48 hrs.) periods of time post second
SAH. Concurrent with endothelial injury, there was widening of inter-endothelial
tight junctions. Morphometric evaluation revealed severe arterial constriction starting
at 30 min. (p<0.01) and again at 48 hrs. (p<0.05) post second SAH.
The correlation between the time course of ultrastructural alteration of endothelial
cells with arterial constriction provides further morphological contribution
to the major complication of SAH-cerebral vasospasm.