Summary
When given to rats, both organic and inorganic mercury compounds were found to be neurotoxic. After CH3HgCl intoxication, focal cytoplasmic degradation was the most characteristic lesion observed in the neurons of the dorsal root ganglion. A large cytoplasmic vacuole was formed in many neurons as a result of such lesions.
After HgCl2 poisoning, the dorsal root ganglion neurons developed peripheral vacuoles, which were formed by the retraction of the neuron from its surrounding satellite cells. Extensive fragmentation of these neurons occurred as such vacuolation progressed. Multiple small lesions varying from 0.1–1.2 μ were found in the neuronal cytoplasm after both organic and inorganic mercury intoxication. Mercury could be demonstrated histochemically to have a close association with these lesions.
In the anterior horn motoneurons, neither mercury compound produced any permanent pathological lesions in the nerve cell bodies, although there was severe dilatation of the cisternae of the endoplasmic reticulum and the nuclear envelope at early stages of the intoxication.
In the cerebellum, both organic and inorganic mercury compounds produced extensive coagulative or lucid changes in the granule cells. Degeneration of the Purkinje cells was also found at late stages of the poisoning.
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Chang, L.W., Hartmann, H.A. Ultrastructural studies of the nervous system after mercury intoxication. Acta Neuropathol 20, 122–138 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00691129
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00691129