Morphological Assessments of Neonatal HypoxiaIschemia: In Situ Cell Degeneration

Cell death in the immature brain can be studied in many ways using morphological and biochemical markers. Essential requirements for cell death and degeneration assessment techniques in the brain include sufficient sensitivity and the ability to differentiate between apoptotic and necrotic cell death, and different forms of DNA damage, and to distinguish between different stages in the cell death process. Detection of cell death by morphology still remains the gold standard. Morphological analyses can also be combined with immunohistochemistry or in situ labeling using different types of specific antibodies or markers to identify cell types undergoing degeneration. This chapter introduces widely used methods to detect different types of cell death in the immature brain after hypoxic-ischemic brain injury by using morphological assessment combined with tissue staining. The procedures, including tissue preparation, staining, and evaluation, are described.