Editorial
The role of the axolemma in the initiation of traumatically induced axonal injury
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Axonal injury is a common feature of mild, moderate, and severe head injury.1 Damage of the axonal pathways within the brain accounts for much of the morbidity after head injury with outcomes ranging from mild concussion to profound coma and even vegetative state. Despite this, the pathogenesis of traumatically induced axonal injury remains unclear.
For many years it was assumed that the rapid acceleration and
deceleration of the brain during traumatic injury sheared axons at the
time of injury causing them to retract and expel a ball of axoplasm,
forming a reactive axonal swelling or retraction ball, the traditional
histological feature of diffuse axonal injury.2-6 However, more contemporary investigations have not supported the basic
concept of axonal shearing at the time of injury as the mode of
disconnection.7-12 Rather, they have shown that in most cases of traumatically induced axonal injury, the process of axonal disconnection is not immediate but
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