Degeneration of serotonin-specific neurons in the brain in experimental Trypanosoma brucei infection.

ORMEROD and HUSSEIN (1986) have shown that an intracellular stage of Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense causes the destruction of ependymal cells lining the ventricles of the brain. The ventricular ependymal cells are intimately associated with a plexus of nerves that react specifically with monoclonal antibody raised against serotonin. We have shown that in areas where the ependyma is damaged, the supraependymal plexus also undergoes destruction and that retrograde degeneration of the neuron as far as the dorsal raphe nucleus also occurs. Although the work is as yet unfinished, we suggest that some of the neuro-psychological changes, observed in clinical sleeping sickness, may be the result of this lesion.