Acceleration induced head injury in the monkey. II. Neuropathology.

A comprehensive neuropathological study has been undertaken in 53 adult subhuman primates subjected to a single sagittal plane angular acceleration impulse. The types of injury produced correlated well with the input force and were very similar to those seen in fatal nonmissile head injuries in man. There was a fracture of the skull in 14 animals. Subdural haematoma occurred in 33 animals, contusions in the frontal and temporal regions of the brain in 39, and discrete intracerebral haematoma in 4. Brain shift and tentorial herniation were also seen. There was evidence of hypoxic brain damage in 22 animals, and central chromatolysis in Betz cells and in the motor nuclei of the brain stem in 16.