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Journal of Nutrition Vol. 61 No. 2 February 1957, pp. 219-234
Copyright © 1957 by American Society for Nutrition
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The Effect of a Combined Deficiency of Thiamine and of Pantothenic Acid on the Nervous System of the Rat

J. D. K. North1 and H. M. Sinclair

Laboratory of Human Nutrition, University of Oxford, England

In the first experiment the effect of repeated acute deficiencies of thiamine on the nervous system was investigated. Ten deficient and 10 inanition-control rats were employed in the study; the deficient rats survived for an average period of 127 days during which time they underwent three to 6 acute deficiencies of thiamine. The severity of the acute deficiency was in most rats indicated by the onset of convulsive siezures and was confirmed by the presence of bradycardia.

The second experiment was designed to study the effect of a combined deficiency of thiamine and pantothenic acid on the nervous system of the rat. For this purpose 10 deficient and 10 inanition-control animals were employed; there were, in addition, 5 rats deprived of pantothenic acid alone and 5 stock-diet control animals.

In the combined deficiency, deprivation of thiamine which was acute and repeated was superimposed on the longer pantothenic-acid deficiency. The rats survived for an average time of 117 days.

Deficient rats in both studies showed no evidence of degenerative changes in the distal segments of the sciatic and posterior tibial nerves, in the lumbar dorsal-root ganglia or in the lumbar cord. Myelinated nerve-fibre counts of the peroneal nerve failed to demonstrate a significant difference between the deficient and the inanition-control rats. Haemorrhages were not seen in the brain-stem of the deficient rats.

1 Formerly Walter Dixon Memorial Scholar, British Medical Association.

Manuscript received 3 August 1956.




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