TO DEVELOP FORENSIC CRITERIA FOR THE DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS OF INTRACEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE OF TRAUMATIC AND NON-TRAUMATIC ORIGIN USING MUELLER-MATRIX MICROSCOPY OF LINEAR DICHROISM

Differential diagnosis of intracerebral hemorrhage due to traumatic and non-traumatic origin is a challenging issue, especially in the absence of visible body injuries and other signs of violence. For a forensic expert-practitioner, the main thing is objectivity, accuracy, and speed of obtaining the result, which could fully satisfy the methods of laser polarimetry in the case of differential diagnosis of hemorrhages of traumatic and non-traumatic origin in the human brain matter. The purpose: To develop forensic criteria for the differential diagnosis of intracerebral hemorrhage of traumatic and non-traumatic origin using Mueller-matrix microscopy of linear dichroism. Materials and methods: The object of the study was brain matter samples, collected in 115 corpses of both sexes aged 22 to 86 years with accurately known causes of death. The causes of death included coronary artery disease, traumatic brain hemorrhage, ischemic brain infarction, and non-traumatic brain hemorrhages. Brain matter samples have been frozen rapidly, and histological sections have been made using a freezing microtome. The slices have been evaluated using the method of azimuthal-invariant Mueller-matrix microscopy, followed by mathematical and statistical processing of the results. Results: significant topographic heterogeneity of Mueller-matrix invariants of brain matter samples linear dichroism maps among all research groups have been found. Individual and significant variations of dispersion, asymmetry, and kurtosis magnitude have confirmed the heterogeneity of Mueller-matrix invariants. The difference of images and histograms among groups is explained by the presence of necrotic changes in the case of ischemic brain necrosis and blood cells in the brain matter samples. For the set of central statistical moments of the 1st, 3rd, and 4th orders, which characterize the distributions of circular dichroism, the method of MM-microscopy in the differentiation of samples of non-hemorrhage and hemorrhage groups reaches a satisfactory level - 78% - 84%. Conclusions: Brain matter samples Muller-matrix microscopy of linear dichroism is effective for solving diagnostic problems of forensic medicine related to evaluating the cause of death from intracerebral hemorrhage of various origins. Diagnostic efficiency of Mueller-matrix mapping of polarization manifestations of linear dichroism method for intergroup differentiation of samples of deaths from traumatic hemorrhage (Group 2) and ischemic cerebral infarction (Group 3) reaches a satisfactory level of 79 - 84%.

Forensic medical differential diagnosis of brain infarctions and hemorrhasis of traumatic genesis by mueller-matrix microscopy

The aim of the work is to develop forensic criteria for differential diagnosis of traumatic hemorrhages (HTG), ischemic stroke (IS), and hemorrhages of nontraumatic genesis (HNG) formation by 3D Mueller-matrix microscopy of layers of azimuthal-invariant Mueller-matrix images of circular birefringence of histological sections of the brain. Material and methods. Native sections of brain taken from 110 corpses were used for the study in the case of: death from coronary heart disease - 20 (18.1%) native sections (group 1 - control); HTG - 30 (27.3%) sections (group 2), IIB - 30 (27.3%) sections (group 3), HNG - 30 (27.3%) sections (group 4). Measurement of the values of the distribution of coordinate parameters of polarization at the points of microscopic images was performed at the location of the standard Stokes polarimeter. Results. It is found that for each of the phase cross-sections of the field, the volume of distributions of complex amplitudes of sensitivity, specificity and balanced accuracy of statistical analysis of coordinate distributions of Mueller-matrix invariants of circular dichroism have maximum values for small phase shifts corresponding to their level. The maximum level of balanced accuracy of intergroup differentiation was revealed by calculating statistical moments of the 3rd and 4th order, which characterize the asymmetry and excess distributions of the Mueller-matrix invariants values of circular dichroism of histological sections of brain substance. Conclusions. Excellent balanced accuracy (95% - 96%) of differential diagnosis was achieved between the control group and all study groups, good accuracy (92% - 93%) between ischemic stroke and traumatic hemorrhage and satisfactory accuracy (85% - 86%) between traumatic and hemorrhagic strokes genesis.