Ahmedabad: Ascertaining the time of death is crucial in several criminal
cases as that can corroborate several aspects of crime such as presence
of suspects, circumstances in which someone died, motive and so on.
Forensic experts keep developing methods of determining time of death
because the same method cannot be applied to all cases. Factors such as
decomposition (or preservation) of the body, temperature and humidity
among others have a bearing on the what investigators conclude to be the
time of death.
Researchers of Gujarat University's department of forensic science have proposed a new method in a paper published recently. The paper titled, 'Estimation of postmortem interval through albumin in CSF by simple dye binding method' recently appeared in the international journal, 'Science and Justice'. Ankita Parmar, a masters student of the department, along with head of the forensic science department, Shobhana Menon, analysed changes in albumin - a protein - from the cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) to come to an estimate about the time of death.
The researchers claim that the method can estimate the time of death to within 1 to 4 hours of the actual time of death in bodies deceased for up to 72 hours.
Menon said that for the project, they collected CSF from 100 cadavers brought to Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad for autopsy.
"The CSF lies in close proximity to the brain and hence reflects changes occurring there. Another advantage is, fluid is well-protected in the skull even during severe accidents and, thus, it is less affected by putrefaction. Therefore, CSF is widely used for chemical analysis while estimating the time of death," said Menon.
Researchers of Gujarat University's department of forensic science have proposed a new method in a paper published recently. The paper titled, 'Estimation of postmortem interval through albumin in CSF by simple dye binding method' recently appeared in the international journal, 'Science and Justice'. Ankita Parmar, a masters student of the department, along with head of the forensic science department, Shobhana Menon, analysed changes in albumin - a protein - from the cerebro-spinal fluid (CSF) to come to an estimate about the time of death.
The researchers claim that the method can estimate the time of death to within 1 to 4 hours of the actual time of death in bodies deceased for up to 72 hours.
Menon said that for the project, they collected CSF from 100 cadavers brought to Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad for autopsy.
"The CSF lies in close proximity to the brain and hence reflects changes occurring there. Another advantage is, fluid is well-protected in the skull even during severe accidents and, thus, it is less affected by putrefaction. Therefore, CSF is widely used for chemical analysis while estimating the time of death," said Menon.
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