Vacuolation in the human cerebral cortex and its relationship to the interval between death and autopsy and to synapse numbers: an electron microscopic study.

Vacuolation in the human cerebral cortex resulting from swelling of cell processes after death was measured in electron micrographs in material obtained up to 69 hours post mortem from subjects with no known neurological abnormality. Vacuolation was found to increase significantly up to 30--35 hours after death and then to decrease. Accompanying this change was a significant reduction in the numbers of recognizable synapses which probably resulted from compression due to the vacuolation rather than from post-mortem disintegration.