2008 Volume 43 Issue 4 Pages 254-257
The high voltage electron microscopy (HVEM) opens new windows of morphological study in medical and biological science due to improvement in observations of thick sections. Three-dimensional analysis by electron tomography provides us new findings in histopathological observation. As an example, morphological investigation of cerebral edema is reviewed in this chapter.
To clarify the pathophysiology of hypertensive cerebral edema, morphological changes in cerebral cortex of stroke-prone rats were investigated using both usual transmission electron microscope (TEM) and high voltage electron microscopy (HVEM). Although there were distinct limitations to investigating the pathogenesis of cerebral edema with usual TEM pictures, additional pathological findings such as vacuolic changes of dendrite spine in nerve cells and active adhesion of leukocytes to endothelial cells in micro vessels were revealed by observation of thick section with HVEM and electron tomography. Utilization of HVEM seems to be very useful to fill the image gap between the light and electron microscope.
