[Effects of sera from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis on neural tissue in vivo and in vitro].

Sera from patients with lateral amyotrophic sclerosis (LAS) were discovered to produce a cytotoxic effect one hour after their intracerebral administration to experimental animals. Coons' test using serum against human gammaglobulins was used to detect their selective binding to separate cells of nervous tissue culture. The data obtained point out that LAS patients' serum contains different anticerebral antibodies whose presence may account for the cytotoxic effect of these sera on the ultrastructure of experimental animals' nervous tissue.

[Features of the ultrastructure of the brain tissue of Meriones unguiculatus after cerebral ischemia and postischemic recirculation].

The authors studied the ultrastructure of the brain tissue in "symptom negative" clawed jirds (M. unguiculatus) in the presence of permanent and transient circulatory ischemia caused by ligation of the right common carotid artery and by a 3-minute occlusion of the left common carotid artery which was unattended by any clinical manifestations signifying cerebral ischemia. The formation of oedema and dystrophic changes in the right hemisphere differed from that in the left one.

[Features of the effect of the sera of patients with hepatocerebral dystrophy on nerve tissue in vivo and in vitro].

Electron microscopy of normal rabbit brain, conducted after the animals had been given intracerebral injection of serum obtained from patients with hepatocerebral dystrophy revealed some peculiarities of the damaging effect of such serum on the brain. Incubation of neural tissue culture with such serum resulted in appearance of hypertrophic astrocytes, type II Alzheimer's cells and Opalski's cells combined with the intact synthesis of an astrocyte specific antigen--an acid protein of astrocytic fibrility--detected by Coons' immunofluorescent test.