Loss of Ephaptic Contacts in the Murine Thalamus during Osmotic Demyelination Syndrome.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: A murine model mimicking osmotic demyelination syndrome (ODS) revealed with histology in the relay posterolateral (VPL) and ventral posteromedial (VPM) thalamic nuclei adjoined nerve cell bodies in chronic hyponatremia, amongst the damaged 12 h and 48 h after reinstatement of osmolality. This report aims to verify and complement with ultrastructure other neurophysiology, immunohistochemistry, and molecular biochemistry data to assess the connexin-36 protein, as part of those hinted close contacts.This ODS investigation included four groups of mice: Sham (NN; n = 13), hyponatremic (HN; n = 11), those sacrificed 12 h after a fast restoration of normal natremia (ODS12h; n = 6) and mice sacrificed 48 h afterward, or ODS48 h (n = 9). Out of these, thalamic zones samples included NN (n = 2), HN (n = 2), ODS12h (n = 3) and ODS48h (n = 3). RESULTS: Ultrastructure illustrated junctions between nerve cell bodies that were immunolabeled with connexin36 (Cx36) with light microscopy and Western blots. These cell's junctions were reminiscent of low resistance junctions characterized in other regions of the CNS with electrophysiology. Contiguous neurons showed neurolemma contacts in intact and damaged tissues according to their location in the ODS zones, at 12 h and 48 h post correction along with other demyelinating alterations. Neurons and ephaptic contact measurements indicated the highest alterations, including nerve cell necrosis in the ODS epicenter and damages decreased toward the outskirts of the demyelinated zone. CONCLUSION: Ephapses contained C × 36between intact or ODS injured neurons in the thalamus appeared to be resilient beyond the core degraded tissue injuries. These could maintain intercellular ionic and metabolite exchanges between these lesser injured regions and, thus, would partake to some brain plasticity repairs.

The osmotic demyelination syndrome: the resilience of thalamic neurons is verified with transmission electron microscopy.

The development of a murine model of osmotic demyelinating syndrome (ODS) allowed to study changes incurred in extrapontine zones of the CNS and featured neuron and glial cell changes in the relay thalamic ventral posterolateral (VPL) and ventral posteromedial (VPM) nuclei before, during and after ODS induction, and characterized without immune response. There, the neuron Wallerian-type deteriorations were verified with fine structure modifications of the neuron cell body, including some nucleus topology and its nucleolus changes. Morphologic analyses showed a transient stoppage of transcriptional activities while myelinated axons in the surrounding neuropil incurred diverse damages, previously reported. Even though the regional thalamus myelin deterioration was clearly recognized with light microscopy 248 h after osmotic recovery of ODS, ultrastructure analyses demonstrated that, at that time, the same damaged parenchyma regions contained nerve cell bodies that have already reactivated nucleus transcriptions and neuroplasm translations because peculiar accumulations of fibro-granular materials, similar to those detected in restored ODS astrocytes, were revealed in these restructuring nerve cell bodies. Their aspects suggested to be accumulations of ribonucleoproteins. The findings suggested that progressive neural function's recovery in the murine model could imitate some aspects of human ODS recovery cases.

Ultrastructural Analysis of Thalamus Damages in a Mouse Model of Osmotic-Induced Demyelination.

A murine model used to investigate the osmotic demyelination syndrome (ODS) demonstrated ultrastructural damages in thalamus nuclei. Following chronic hyponatremia, significant myelinolysis was merely detected 48 h after the rapid reinstatement of normonatremia (ODS 48 h). In ODS samples, oligodendrocytes and astrocytes revealed injurious changes associated with a few cell deaths while both cell types seemed to endure a sort of survival strategy: (a) ODS 12 h oligodendrocytes displayed nucleoplasm with huge heterochromatic compaction, mitochondria hypertrophy, and most reclaimed an active NN cell aspect at ODS 48 h. (b) Astrocytes responded to the osmotic stress by overall cell shrinkage with clasmatodendrosis, these changes accompanied nucleus wrinkling, compacted and segregated nucleolus, destabilization of astrocyte-oligodendrocyte junctions, loss of typical GFAP filaments, and detection of round to oblong woolly, proteinaceous aggregates. ODS 48 h astrocytes regained an active nucleus aspect, without restituting GFAP filaments and still contained cytoplasmic proteinaceous deposits. (c) Sustaining minor shrinking defects at ODS 12 h, neurons showed slight axonal injury. At ODS 48 h, neuron cell bodies emerged again with deeply indented nucleus and, owing nucleolus translational activation, huge amounts of polysomes along with secretory-like activities. (d) In ODS, activated microglial cells got stuffed with huge lysosome bodies out of captures cell damages, leaving voids in interfascicular and sub-vascular neuropil. Following chronic hyponatremia, the murine thalamus restoration showed macroglial cells acutely turned off transcriptional and translational activities during ODS and progressively recovered activities, unless severely damaged cells underwent cell death, leading to neuropil disruption and demyelination.