Nutritional Hydrocephalus in Infant Rats. ∗

Abstract

Conclusions

Mature hydrocephalic parents were capable of producing young and when they received a stock diet none of the offspring were hydrocephalic even though both parents had severe hydrocephalus. In studies on the effect of folic acid and APF concentrates on the incidence of hydrocephalus, 7.48% of the young born to female rats, receiving a purified diet low in folic acid developed the abnormality. The incidence was decreased to 0.15% by the addition of 100 μg of folic acid per 100 g of diet. It was 2.02% when the diet contained 2 g of Merck's APF concentrate No. 3 per kilo. When both folic acid and Merck's or Lederle APF concentrates were added, the incidence was essentially the same as when folic acid alone was added. None of the young from parents that received liver “L” was hydrocephalic. When 10 mg of crude folic acid antagonist were added to the basal diet which contained Merck's APF concentrate, the number of litters per female were decreased, but there was no increase in the incidence of hydrocephalus.