Effects of chronic exposure to diluted automotive exhaust gas on the CNS of normotensive and hypertensive rats.
Regarding the potential impact of traffic-born air pollutants on public health, attention during the last years has been increasingly focused on the possible effects in high-risk groups of the population. In order to evaluated this point further, the combined influence of both, chronic arterial hypertension and long-time exhaust gas exposure on the CNS has been studied. Both, normotensive Wistar) and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) of either sex were exposed 5 X 8 hours per week for up to 18 months to atmospheres polluted by the emissions of an idling Otto engine with CO concentrations held constant at about 0,90 and 250 ppm, respectively. Biochemical data, body weight, and blood pressure were checked regularly. Characteristic histomorphological findings in the non-exposed SHR brains were hyalinosis and hyperplasia of intracerebral arterioles and -- in some cases -- small focal hemorrhages and infarcts. In the exposed SHR brains, large infarcts of the hemisphere and in the basal ganglia were found, which possibly corresponds to the increase of the mortality rate in SHR. We assume that the increase hematocrit plays an important role in the disturbance of microcirculation of the CNS.
D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology; D002249:Carbon Monoxide Poisoning / Q000150:complications*; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000139:chemically induced* / Q000473:pathology; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005260:Female; D006400:Hematocrit; D006973:Hypertension / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats
D000393:Air Pollutants