Figure 3.

Time course and severity of delayed disseminated apoptotic death observed in the brains of developing rats traumatized on postnatal day 7 and sacrificed 6, 24, or 48 hr or 5 days later. For quantification purposes, each brain was given a score that was based on determined densities of degenerating cells within 13 regions ipsilateral and 13 regions contralateral to the trauma. Depicted are means ± SEMs in 6–16 animals. Delayed damage was more severe at 24 hr compared with 6 hr (○○○, P < 0.001) and 48 hr (∗∗∗, P < 0.001) after trauma. Damage severity continued to decline and was significantly less at 5 days compared with 48 hr after trauma (▪ ▪ ▪, P < 0.001; Student′s t test.).