Neocortical pathology in chronic murine retroviral encephalitis

Retroviral infection of the central nervous system (CNS) causes chronic functional and morphological damage in a wide variety of mammals. Neuropathological studies have focused on subcortical pathology, however, the neocortex is also affected. Because studies of human CNS pathology have been limited to the use of material from terminal stages of disease, we used two neuropathogenic murine leukemia virus (MuLV) models to study the development of neocortical damage. MuLV infection caused spongiform change in the spinal cord, brainstem and cerebellum but not in the cerebrum. However, over the course of disease, we observed a reduction of neocortical thickness, accompanied by diminished neuronal and dendritic spine density. Electron microscopic studies showed minimal to no ultrastructural alterations of dendritic spines. Since there was no evidence of extensive direct viral infection of the neocortical neurons or glia at the ultrastructural level, we hypothesize that neocortical damage may be an indirect effect of subcortical retroviral infection.