Vanadium impairs neuronal infrastructure of the hippocampal trisynaptic loop in the African Giant Rat (Cricetomys gambianus, Waterhouse).

Abstract Environmental pollution with vanadium may pose neurotoxicity threats to known unique neural attributes (cognition and olfaction) of the African giant rat (AGR). This rodent lives within the same ecological zones with the human populace thus, experimental investigations on the effect of vanadium on this rodent may mirror latent epidemiological scenario on the human populace. This work was designed to evaluate the neurotoxic effect of vanadium on the hippocampal neuronal infrastructure and circuitry, and provide cellular correlates to its notable pathologies in the AGR. Adult male AGRs were dosed daily with 3mg/kg body sodium metavanadate for 14days and harvested brains were processed for histology Using Nissl and Golgi staining techniques with stereological analysis. we demonstrated the effect of vanadium on AGR neuronal architecture of the hippocampal trisynaptic loop as a probable cellular mechanism of vanadium-induced memory deficits. Specifically, the most notable pathologies were seen in the dentate gyrus and CA3 with significant decrease in neuronal density, disruption of the cytoarchitecture, and loss of dendritic arborizations and axonal extensions. while hippocampal subfields CA2 and CA4 show region-specific resistance to the vanadium-induced neurotoxicity. The selective vulnerability to the vanadium-induced neurotoxicity is adduced. Given the unique neural attributes of the AGR and their translational benefits, as sniff rats it then becomes expedient to note the impact of environmental pollution (in this case vanadium) on their performance index. It is also proposed that this indigenous rodent may be a suitable model for evaluating memory pathologies in ecological studies of neurotoxicities.