[Neurotoxicity of methyl bromide--neuropathologic evaluation--preliminary study]

Methyl bromide exposure produces disorders of the central and peripheral nervous system. In the literature, there are many neuropathologic studies on the nervous system, especially on the central nervous system, of experimental animals intoxicated with methyl bromide presented. However, in our opinion, a variety of lesions of the nervous system described in the human methyl bromide intoxication have not been well reproduced in the experimental animals. In this study, male Wistar rats were subjected to a 6-hour exposure a day to methyl bromide at a concentration of 500 or 290 ppm 3 days a week for 3 to 8 weeks. The systematic neuropathologic studies of their central and peripheral nervous systems were carried out to reproduce the nervous system lesions in the human methyl bromide intoxication hitherto not produced in the experimental animals. Among the rats exposed to methyl bromide at a concentration of 500 ppm for 10 to 18 days, the axonal degeneration of myelinated fibers at the cervical level of the fasciculus gracilis, which probably corresponds to the degeneration of the spinal posterior column in humans, and the necrosis of the caudate-putamen and atrophy of neurons and pallor of the neuropile in caudate-putamen, thalamus and cingulate cortex, which probably correspond to the degenerative findings of the cerebrum in humans, were found. The rats exposed to methyl bromide at a concentration of 290 ppm for 8 weeks (24 days) did not show any noticeable abnormalities histologically.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)