Mitochondrial changes in rat Purkinje cells after prolonged alcohol consumption. A morphologic assessment

The effects of chronic alcohol consumption on the mitochondria of Purkinje cells from the adult rat cerebellar cortex was examined with ultrastructural morphometric methods. Groups of controls and animals which were fed alcohol for periods of 1, 3, 6, 12 and 18 months were studied. Enlargement of the mitochondrial profiles was noted after one month of alcohol intake. The enlargement was significantly different in animals fed alcohol for 3 and 6 months when compared to controls. This alteration was no longer evident in the 12 and 18 months alcohol-fed groups, although by this time large numbers of ring-shaped mitochondria, occasionally filled by dense deposits, appeared in the Purkinje cell somas and in their apical dendrites. All these changes appeared regardless of variations in the number of these organelles per unit surface of cell cytoplasm. This data lends evidence that long-term exposure to ethanol, as has been shown to happen in the liver, induces marked structural mitochondrial alterations in the central nervous system.