Introduction: Acrylamide (ACR) is a neurotoxic material to animals and humans.
Aim: To elucidate the possible structural changes that may occur in cerebellum of male albino rat offspring after oral administration of acrylamide to their pregnant and lactating mothers.
Material and Methods: After mating, 54 pregnant female rats were divided equally into three groups. Group A: did not receive any treatment and group B: received 10mg\kg\day of acrylamide orally from day 7 (D7) of gestation until birth. While, group C received the same dose and route of acrylamide from D7 of gestation until postnatal day (PD) 21. The male pups of each group were divided into subgroups according to the PD of sacrifice; PD7, PD14, and PD21 respectively. Cerebellum specimens were processed for light microscopy, immunohistochemistry, morphometeric and statistical studies.
Results: With acrylamide treatment, the general observation revealed signals of neurological abnormalities. There were histopathological degenerative changes in the architecture of the cerebellum of all treated groups. These changes were greatly increased from group B to group C. Postnatally, pia mater detachment, cavitations, hemorrhage within folds and degenerated changes of all granular layers and Purkinje cells (PC) were observed. Statistically, a highly significant decrease in the thickness of external granular layer and number of normal PC was revealed in groups B and C when compared with group A. While area % of the bcl-2 immunoexpression showed a high significant increase.
Conclusion: Acrylamide adversely affected the structure of the developing cerebellum of albino rat offspring exposed during gestation and lactation periods. The severity of these changes was increased with longer period of exposure. Further measures should be needed to minimize acrylamide formation in food.