Description:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>Influenza virus has been implicated as the cause of acute human encephalitis (1), and may possibly be involved in the pathogenesis of certain chronic neurologic disorders (2). However, experiments concerning the effects of the virus on the nervous system have been limited largely to rodents, and influenza virus encephalitis in primates has not yet been described. We now report the production of encephalitis following intracerebral challenge of immunosuppressed monkeys with influenza virus.</jats:p>
<jats:p>Materials and Methods. Young squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) weighing approximately 500 g were inoculated with neurotropic strains (NWS and WSN) of influenza A virus. The NWS strain was kindly supplied by Dr. E. Kilbourne and was passaged once in mouse brain. The WSN strain, which previously had been passaged five times in Madin-Darby bovine kidney (MDBK) cells (3), was the gift of Dr. P. Choppin. Stock NWS and WSN strains contained 5.0 × 105 and 1.9 × 108.0 PFU (plaque-forming units)/ml, respectively.</jats:p>