Plasmocid Encephalopathy in the Rhesus Monkey: A Study of Selective Vulnerability

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Abstract
The effects of plasmocid (8-diethylaminopropylamino-6-methoxyquinoline) on the central nervous system of rhesus monkeys were studied by electron and correlative light microscopy. Light microscopic studies showed neuronal vacuolar lesions distributed selectively in the diencephalon and brain stem. In the affected nuclei, principally III, IV, VI and VIII, the brunt of the damage was consistently borne by large multipolar neurons. The cerebral and cerebellar cortices were normal. Electron microscopy showed the earliest effects to be an abnormality of neuronal mitochondria, which were enormously increased in number with incompletely formed transverse inner cristae. Later stages of degeneration showed dissolution of mitochondrial contents so that only their outer membranes remained. Neuroglia were morphologically normal, as were synapses in contact with the altered neurons. Neurons in the most advanced stage of degeneration exhibited complete destruction of cytoplasmic contents and disruption of the cell membrane with crenated nuclei remaining. The ultrastructural data confirm the highly selective vulnerability of brain stem nuclei to plasmocid and suggests that the primary effect of the drug is on neuronal mitochondria.

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