A Study Of Expression Of GFAP In Rats After Fluid Percussion Brain Injury

Objective: To explore the expression of GFAP at different time, different places and different injury level after traumatic brain injury in rats. For the purpose of providing the experiment basis for the nerve mechanism of astrocyte in traumatic brain injury.Methods: Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were distributed to normal control group, sham control group and injury group. The rats in injury group were made to brain injury model after fluid percussion brain injury with different pressure (100kPa, 200kPa, 300kPa). Then brains of rats were collected at different time (6h,12h,24h,3d,7d,14d). The expression of GFAP positive cells were detected in cortex and hippocampus by immunohistochem- istry of GFAP histochemistry.Results: successfully set up a rat model with fluid percussion brain injury. Compared with the sham control group, the number of GFAP positive cells in the near-damaged-area of the ipsilateral injuryed cortex and hippocampus continually increased from 1 to 7 days, the cell bodies enlarged and the processes extended; otherwise, the number of GFAP positive cells had intimate relations with the level of injury. GFAP positive cells increased with the elevation of injury level.Conclusions: Astrocytes activates, and the expression of GFAP increases after fluid percussion brain injury in rats.The changes of expression of GFAP have some rules with time and injury level. It suggests that astrocytes take part in the damnification and repair of brain tissue after TBI in rats.