besoli.blogg.se

Astrocytes start to react, becoming large and getting ready to divide. Macrophages are like little moms going around and cleaning up the seemingly never-ending mess. The tissue begins to undergo liquefactive necrosis from all those nasty enzymes released by the neutrophils. Microglia (the resident phagocytic cells of the brain) become activated too. Somewhere around the end of the first day, neutrophils swarm into the area, staying until about the end of the second day, at which point they take off and are replaced by  macrophages (which come in from the blood as monocytes). Pathologists love food analogies and use them whenever possible.) Cells in general (but especially endothelial cells and astrocytes) tend to swell up and become more faded in color. Later the nucleus undergoes pyknosis (in which it becomes small and dark) and karyorrhexis (in which it fragments into little bits, like cookie crumbs. Somewhere around 12 hours following an infarct, neuronal cytoplasm develops tiny holes (microvacuoles) and takes on a deep pink-red color (the neurons are actually called red neurons at this point – you can see why in the image above). There are basically four stages of healing following an infarct, and they usually happen in a predictable timeframe.Īfter brain tissue dies, it takes a while before you can see any real changes in the cells. Let’s take a look at the steps the body takes to heal itself following an ischemic event in the brain. We discuss which areas of the brain are involved, and we correlate the areas damaged with the patient’s symptoms.īut what actually happens in the affected brain regions after a stroke? Injuries in the brain don’t heal like they do in other organs (you don’t form a scab and a scar in your brain).

We talk a lot about strokes in a clinical way in medical school.