ALTERED RESPONSE TO SCRAPIE TISSUES IN NEUROLOGICAL DISEASE POSSIBLE EVIDENCE FOR AN ANTIGEN ASSOCIATED WITH REACTIVE ASTROCYTES BY

WHEN scrapie mouse brain is injected into guinea-pigs the immunological response is different from that produced by normal mouse brain (Field and Shenton, 1972). The guinea-pig lymphocytes become more sensitive to scrapie than normal brain and the difference is greater when scrapie brain has been injected into a guinea-pig than when normal brain has been injected. The same scrapie-normal antigen difference in lymphocyte response is found when guinea-pigs are tested with scrapie and normal spleen. Since it has been reported that a scrapie-like condition emerged in sheep in Iceland after inoculation of brain material from a patient who died in an acute stage of multiple sclerosis (MS) (Palsson, Pattison and Field, 1965), it seemed worth finding out if patients with multiple sclerosis (and other destructive neurological diseases) present the same sort of sensitization as has been found when an animal has been injected with scrapie material (Field and Shenton, 1972). The same scrapie-normal difference was found in MS, but also in neurosyphilis (GPI) and to a lesser degree in other (less destructive) neurological diseases. The scrapie-normal difference appear