Fakunle P. B., Ajibade A. J., Ehigie L.O, Adefule A. K., Fafure O. O.
Control of drug use is of paramount importance as r egards the public health concern and among the leading most abused drugs are ethanol and acetamino phen while the maintenance of uninterrupted visual signals is of crucial importance to an indiv idual survival of which Lateral geniculate body rol es as a vital relay station. In this study, long term effects of simultaneous administration of ethanol a nd acetaminophen were investigated on the lateral geni culate body. Forty adult wistar rats of both sexes of average weight 185±20.2g were randomly distributed into four groups of treatments T1,T2, T3 and control C (N=10) . The animals were fed on standard laboratory mouse chow with water provided ad libitum. For a period of 6 weeks, animals in group T1 recei ved 100mg/Kg.bwt. acetaminophen and 25% ethanol in 2% sucrose solution while group T2 anima ls received 25% ethanol in 2% sucrose solution.T3 animals were given 100mg/Kg.bwt. acetaminophen and group C animals were given only distilled water. At the end of administration all the animals were s acrificed by cervical dislocation and the LGB were dissected out and processed for routine histologica l techniques and bioassay of succinic dehydrogenase. Shrunken brains were seen only in th e treatment groups T1 and T2 with significant brain weight loss (P<0.01) compared to the control while T3 brain were insignificantly reduced compared to the control. Histological findings reve aled scantily distributed pyknotic neuronal cells i n the T1 and T2 groups while T3 sections appeared nor mal with few distortions compared to normal pictures obtained in the control group. Significant ly(P<0.05) reduced neuronal cells density of 46% an d 39% neuronal loss respectively was obtained in trea tment groups T1 and T2 respectively compared to control group as against an insignificant 9% loss s een control group. However, the enzymatic of SDH was markedly reduced in T1 and T2 as compared to hi gh activities recorded in the control and T3 groups. These neuronal alterations may underline vi sual defects associated with lateral geniculate bod y as a visual relay station following chronic simulta neous consumption of ethanol and acetaminophen.
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