Transmission of an Encephalitogenic Agent from Brains of Patients with Subacute Sclerosing Panencephalitis to Ferrets

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Abstract
Ten per cent suspensions of brain tissue from three patients with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis were inoculated intracerebrally into ferrets. These animals manifested a neurologic disease, characterized by ataxia and loss of interest in the environment, approximately five months after the inoculation. Examination of brains and spinal cords revealed encephalomyelitis, whose histologic picture included gliosis, round-cell and plasma-cell infiltration with perivascular cuffing and neuronophagia. Inoculation of 10 per cent suspensions of brains from these ferrets into new ferrets reproduced the disease after a shorter (three months') incubation period. Injection of suspensions of three human brains obtained at autopsy of patients who did not have panencephalitis and of a suspension of a normal ferret brain did not produce this disease in ferrets. Electroencephalography revealed abnormal patterns before signs of clinical disease appeared.