This work was supported by National Council for Science, Technology, and Technological Innovation (CONCYTEC) – World Bank, through its executing unit National Fund for the Development of Science, Technology, and Technological Innovation (FONDECYT) contract [E033-01-08-2018-FONDECYT/Banco Mundial Programas de Doctorado en A´reas Estrate´gicas y Generales], Fogarty International Center-National Institutes of Health Training grant D43 TW001140, and by Intramural National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Neurocysticercosis is a parasitic brain disease caused by the larval form (Cysticercus cellulosae) of Taenia solium and is the leading cause of preventable epilepsy worldwide. However, the pathophysiology and relation to the wide range of clinical features remains poorly understood. Axonal swelling is emerging as an important early pathological finding in multiple neurodegenerative diseases and as a cause of brain injury, but has not been well described in neurocysticercosis. Histological analysis was performed on human, rat and porcine NCC brain specimens to identify axonal pathology. Rat infection was successfully carried out via two routes of inoculation: direct intracranial injection and oral feeding. Extensive axonal swellings, in the form of spheroids, were observed in both humans and rats and to a lesser extent in pigs with NCC. Spheroids demonstrated increased immunoreactivity to...