| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,300,000)
Fiscal Year 1996: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 1995: ¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
For the study of estimation of the time after death, postmortem changes in brain lipids were investigated. Brain lipids in 44 forensic autopsy cases were examined. Total lipids, total phospholipids and total free fatty acids were measured, and percentage of free fatty acid composition was calculated. Percentage of phospholipid to total lipid decreased, whereas that of total free fatty acids increased in accordance with postmortem interval. Percentages of 16 : 0 and 18 : 0 in the free fatty acid were high, although the former tended to decrease in accordance with postmortem interval.
The influence of modes of killing and storage temperature on the changes of lipids was compared. Rats were killed by either nitrogen asphyxiation, decapitation, or intraperitoneal injection of sodium pentobarbital. The bodies were maintained at 15ﾟC,23ﾟC and 30ﾟC in incubator up to 120 hours. Among the free fatty acid, the composition of 18 : 0 and 20 : 4 decreased, whereas that of 22 : 6 increased with time, although the amounts of total free fatty acid of rats died of pentobarbital intoxication were somewhat lower than those of nitrogen asphyxiation and decapitation. The modes of killing did not significantly affect the changes of lipids presumably because of short duration of agonal stage inherent in them. The storage temperature of rat bodies influenced the changes of lipids, which were greater at 30ﾟC than at 15ﾟC and 23ﾟC.
The influence of duration of agonal stage on the change of lipids was investigated by pentobarbital intoxication. The amounts of total free fatty acid of rats killed by decapitation after injection of pentobarbital were lower than those of rats killed by decapitation without pentobarbital injection. The amounts of total free fatty acid in rats died 15 or 30 minutes after pentobarbital injection were lower than those of 5 minutes.
We intend to investigate the changes of brain lipids for estimation of the time after brain death.
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