[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.