Summary
Rats have been poisoned with methyl-mercury-dicyandiamide at two different dose levels, 5 mg/kg body weight or 7.5 mg/kg daily for 8 consecutive days. The morphological changes in peripheral nerves and the central nervous system are largely restricted to primary sensory cells of spinal ganglia, and to a lesser extent to the granular cells of the cerebellum.
There were clearly two grades of cell damage, either whole cell death or whole fibre death; there is no evidence to suggest that partial fibre death could occur, at least not at the two dose levels used.
No definite indications were found for this neuropathy being a ‘dying back’ process, for the nerve fibres appeared to degenerate contemporaneously along their whole extent.
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Cavanagh, J.B., Chen, F.C.K. The effects of methyl-mercury-dicyandiamide on the peripheral nerves and spinal cord of rats. Acta Neuropathol 19, 208–215 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00684597
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00684597