Trypanosoma brucei gambiense: a light and electron microscopy study of brain lesions in chronically infected rats
Van Marck, E.; Chirimwami, B.
Verhandelingen - Koninklijke Academie Voor Geneeskunde van Belgie 47(2): 129-172
1985
ISSN/ISBN: 0302-6469 PMID: 4050074 Document Number: 242362
Brains of rats with chronic T. brucei gambiense (Mongo stock) infections were examined by light and electron microscopy. In a first experiment, the cerebral lesions in the terminal stage of the infection were defined and the ultrastructural morphology of tissue forms of the parasites in the brain and their relation to surrounding structures were assessed. A 2nd experiment was a time-course study of the evolution of brain lesions. In a 3rd experiment ultrastructural changes in the choroid plexus of the 4th and the lateral ventricles were studied in relation to other brain lesions. The results showed that the brain lesions in the animal model used were similar to those of human African trypanosomiasis. Cerebral involvement seems to start as an inflammatory infiltrate in the dura mater of the brain base and in the pituitary, after which the blood-brain barrier is ruptured and the inflammation progresses through the subarachnoidal space and the Virchow-Robin space. Treatment with melarsoprol (3 x 10 mg/kg body weight) seemed to precipitate the cerebral lesions. The choroid plexus was invoved only late in the infection and may be responsible for the occurrence of replapses after treatment.