VASCULAR AND INTERSTITIAL CELL CHANGES IN THIAMINE-DEFICIENT ANIMALS

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Abstract
Prickett1 seems to have been the first to describe hemorrhages in the brains of thiamine-deficient rats. These lesions were usually recent, small and bilaterally located in the vestibular nuclei, the nucleus solitarius, the abducens nucleus, the cerebellar nuclei and the cerebellum. In several animals which had been restored clinically from deficiency and subsequently made thiamine deficient again, the hemorrhages were old and were accompanied by proliferation of the interstitial and vascular connective tissues or replaced by scars. Degeneration of myelin sheaths was not seen in Marchi or Busch preparations, but in Nissl preparations chromatolysis and sclerosis of cell bodies were observed in the vestibular and cerebellar nuclei. Similar lesions were also noted by Church2 in thiamine-deficient rats. Prickett1 observed the same type of hemorrhage in thiamine-deficient pigeons. As in the rat, the lesions were located chiefly in the vestibular and cerebellar nuclei, but also in the optic