Peripheral nerve fibre degeneration in protein-deprived young rats. An ultrastructural study.

In a previous study the occurrence of nerve fibre degeneration with a distribution as in dying-back neuropathies was described in young rats subjected to severe protein deprivation (Oldfors 1981). In this study the ultrastructural appearance of the degeneration of the nerve fibres at different levels of the longitudinal tail nerve in severely protein-deprived rats has been investigated. Various structural changes were noted, the most common being bands of Bŭngner indistinguishable from those seen in Wallerian degeneration. In nerve fibres which were less severely affected the most common finding was shrinkage of the axon with concomitant folding of the myelin sheath. Other structural changes included axonal accumulation of 10 nm filaments or mitochondria and other cell organelles, areas of demyelination, and projections of axolemma and Schwann cell membrane into the axon. Signs of axonal regeneration occurred but were infrequent. The degenerative changes seen at various levels of the nerves support the view that the neuropathy is of distal axonal type, but the structural appearance differs from several of the toxic dying-back neuropathies.