Fatal head injury in children: a new approach to scoring axonal and vascular damage

As part of a multidisciplinary study of brain damage in children fatally in jured in motor vehicle accidents, a simple method to quantify and visualise the distribution and extent of injury has been developed. Vascular and axo nal injury were assessed using coronal brain sections stained for haematoxy lin and eosin, or reacted immunohistochemically for P-amyloid precursor pro tein. Subsequent analysis was carried out using NM Image software, and the resulting information is displayed in schematic diagrams. These summary dia grams simply and clearly show the distribution of injury in both the corona l and horizontal planes. This technique offers an advantage over previous s coring methods in that it provides both a quantitative and a visual summary of the distribution and extent of brain injury. This information can then be used to compare the injury distribution and severity with estimated impa ct points and acceleration data.