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I. Feigin, MD
Dept of Pathology New York Univ Med Center School of Medicine New York, NY 10016

Arch Neurol. 1977;34(1):57.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The letter by Dr Adams on the "respirator brain" and the reply by Dr Walker in the August issue of the ARCHIVES (33:589, 1976) indicates the degree to which this subject is plagued by conceptual difficulties. Dr Adams implicates autolytic changes occurring postmortem in the sense of occurring after brain death, while Dr Walker continues to affirm that agonal or premortem events are involved, at least in part. The word autolysis means self-dissolution, implying indigenous changes not related to continued blood flow and the influence of hematogenous cells or enzymes. It is an extension of the literal meaning of the word to imply that autolysis is not "vital," that it must of necessity be postmortem. Those of us who believe that most macrophages observed in cerebral infarcts are indigenous in origin could view the evolution of such infarcts as being partially autolytic, even when occurring many years . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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