A spontaneous case of spinal cord degeneration in an adult dairy goat

Abstract

A 2-year–old Saanen female goat, which showed a 10-day history of neurological deficit symptoms encompassing posterior weakness, difficulty in rising, and eventually inability to rise, was euthanatized because of poor prognosis. Histopathology revealed the presence of spinal cord degeneration characterized by Wallerian-type degeneration of myelinated nerve fibers in the white matter in association with myelin sheath degeneration, reactive astrocytosis, fibrillary astrogliosis, and capillary proliferation while sparing neurons in the gray matter horns. Lesions were bilateral and more marked in the lateral and ventral funiculi, particularly of the cervical and thoracic cord segments. Similar but far less severe degenerative lesions were present in the medulla oblongata, whereas other sites of the central nervous system, sciatic and femoral nerves, and skeletal muscles represented no significant changes. The nature and distribution of the spinal cord degeneration were distinguished from those reported previously in copper deficiency-induced syndrome or other neurodegenerative disorders in the goat. This condition was possibly a distinct variant of neurodegenerative disorder with specific involvement of the spinal cord in this species, although its etiology remains unknown.