NEUROPATHOLOGICAL STUDIES ON SMALL RUMINANTS ASSOCIATED WITH OR WITHOUT NERVOUS SIGNS

This study was done to explore the important brain affections which affect sheep and goats manifesting clinical signs based on gross and histopathology. A total of 70 brain samples from sheep and goats (60 sheep and 10 goats) were collected and subjected to pathological study. Necropsies were performed immediately after death and postmortem lesions were recorded. Histopathology was done at 11 different neuroanatomical locations in the whole brain. The results of the pathological examination were variable in type and severity. Meningitis, degeneration, malacia, pigmentation, vascular changes, encephalitis and cystic formation were the most common alterations detected in the brain tissues . In conclusion, not all animals reported to have shown nervous signs before death brought for necropsy revealed histopathological lesions. At the same time some of those having no nervous signs revealed considerable lesions in the brain. It is worthy to mention that some of the cases that showed microscopical lesions in the form of degeneration and inflammation had no gross lesions in the brain.