Investigation of nervous and endocrine system changes due to stress: practical application for the postmortem diagnosis of abuse

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25860492
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Legal medicine
• Research Institution: Kagoshima University
• Principal Investigator: HAYASHI Takahito 鹿児島大学, 医歯(薬)学総合研究科, 講師 (40512497)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 児童虐待 / 高齢者虐待 / 拘束ストレス / 副腎内分泌系 / 胸腺萎縮 / CCR5 / 法医病理学的診断

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated nervous and immune system changes attributed to endocrine system ones by abuse stress. At first, abuse stress causes adrenal endocrine system changes from the investigation using a mouse restraint stress model of psychological abuse and forensic autopsy cases. Our results suggest that the analysis of the changes may be useful for the diagnosis of child abuse and determining the duration. We could not show significant changes of the nervous system caused by endocrine system ones in elderly abuse cases. As for the immune system, CCR5 expression was up-regulated in the thymus of child abuse cases and therefore, CCR5 may be a novel marker for the diagnosis of child abuse and therapeutic marker for thymic atrophy.

Free Research Field

法医学