Quantifying human post-mortem movement resultant from decomposition processes

Notes from Post--Mortem Examinations

Ectomycorrhizal colonization slows root decomposition: the post-mortem fungal legacy.

The amount of carbon plants allocate to mycorrhizal symbionts exceeds that emitted by human activity annually. Senescent ectomycorrhizal roots represent a large input of carbon into soils, but their fate remains unknown. Here, we present the surprising result that, despite much higher nitrogen concentrations, roots colonized by ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi lost only one-third as much carbon as no...

Isolation of primary microglia from the human post-mortem brain: effects of ante- and post-mortem variables

Microglia are key players in the central nervous system in health and disease. Much pioneering research on microglia function has been carried out in vivo with the use of genetic animal models. However, to fully understand the role of microglia in neurological and psychiatric disorders, it is crucial to study primary human microglia from brain donors. We have developed a rapid procedure for the...

Imaging maculopathy in post-mortem human eyes

Age-related maculopathy (ARM) remains a poorly understood degeneration. To discover new pathways using contemporary genomics, proteomics, and immunohistochemistry, validate emerging animal models, and validate new imaging modalities, human tissues obtained from donor eyes will be essential to ARM research for the foreseeable future. Because fundus appearance is the clinical diagnostic lingua fr...

Human skull translucency: post mortem studies.

Measurements of optical translucency of human skulls were carried out. An incandescent light source and a CCD camera were used to measure the distribution of light transmitted through the skull in 10 subjects post-mortem. We noticed that intra-individual differences in optical translucency may be up to 100 times but inter-individual translucency differences across the skull reach 105 times. Bas...