Discipline of Pathology, Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Department of Neuropathology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia.
PLoS One. 2020 Apr 22;15(4):e0231870. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231870. eCollection 2020.
Interference with the transmission of sensory signals along visual and auditory pathways has been implicated in the pathogenesis of hallucinations. The relay centres for vision (the lateral geniculate nucleus) and hearing (the medial geniculate nucleus) appear to be susceptible to the uptake of circulating mercury. We therefore investigated the distribution of mercury in cells of both these geniculate nuclei.
Paraffin-embedded tissue sections containing the lateral geniculate nucleus were obtained from 50 adults (age range 20-104 years) who at autopsy had a variety of clinicopathological conditions, including neurological and psychiatric disorders. The medial geniculate nucleus was present in seven sections. Sections were stained for mercury using autometallography. Laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry was used to confirm the presence of mercury.
Ten people had mercury in cells of the lateral geniculate nucleus, and in the medial geniculate nucleus of three of these. Medical diagnoses in these individuals were: none (3), Parkinson disease (3), and one each of depression, bipolar disorder, multiple sclerosis, and mercury self-injection. Mercury was distributed in different groups of geniculate capillary endothelial cells, neurons, oligodendrocytes, and astrocytes. Mass spectrometry confirmed the presence of mercury.
Mercury is present in different combinations of cell types in the lateral and medial geniculate nuclei in a proportion of people from varied backgrounds. This raises the possibility that mercury-induced impairment of the function of the geniculate nuclei could play a part in the genesis of visual and auditory hallucinations. Although these findings do not provide a direct link between mercury in geniculate cells and hallucinations, they suggest that further investigations into the possibility of toxicant-induced hallucinations are warranted.
干扰视觉和听觉通路中感觉信号的传递与幻觉的发病机制有关。视觉（外侧膝状体）和听觉（内侧膝状体）的中继中心似乎容易吸收循环中的汞。因此，我们研究了这两个膝状体核细胞中汞的分布。
从 50 名成年人（年龄 20-104 岁）的尸体中获得了包含外侧膝状体的石蜡包埋组织切片，这些人在尸检时患有各种临床病理状况，包括神经和精神疾病。有 7 个切片包含内侧膝状体。使用自动金属成像术对汞进行染色。使用激光烧蚀-电感耦合等离子体质谱法确认汞的存在。
10 人外侧膝状体核细胞中有汞，其中 3 人内侧膝状体核细胞中有汞。这些人的医疗诊断分别为：无（3 人）、帕金森病（3 人）、抑郁症（1 人）、双相情感障碍（1 人）、多发性硬化症（1 人）和汞自我注射（1 人）。汞分布在外侧膝状体核不同的毛细血管内皮细胞、神经元、少突胶质细胞和星形胶质细胞群中。质谱分析证实了汞的存在。
不同背景的人外侧和内侧膝状体核的不同细胞类型中都存在汞。这表明，汞引起的膝状体核功能障碍可能在视觉和听觉幻觉的发生中起作用。尽管这些发现并没有提供膝状体细胞中汞与幻觉之间的直接联系，但它们表明有必要进一步研究有毒物质引起的幻觉的可能性。
