In this paper, rod-like chitin whisker was used as a filler to reinforce the chitosan membrane, and a series of composite membranes were prepared by casting-evaporation method. Mechanical testing shows that tensile strength of the resulting composite membrane with 3 wt% chitin whisker content reaches up to 110.3 MPa, which is about 2.8 times than that of neat chitosan membrane (38.5 MPa), and m...

Preparation of Phenolic nanocomposites with the help of solvent casting technique was carried out by dispersing the chitin nano particles in water soluble phenol formaldehyde (PF). The nanocomposites were prepared by using water suspended chitin whisker as the reinforced phase and water soluble phenol formaldehyde (PF) as matrix. In the present work, crab shell originated chitin whisker was pro...

The surface diffusion of an axi-symmetric solid, a whisker, subject to applied uniaxial stress, is studied numerically based on a new boundary integral formulation for periodic stress configurations. An efficient semi-implicit time-stepping scheme is developed to treat the serve stiffness due to high-order derivatives. When the initial perturbation is small the effect of the stress on the motio...

IMPORTANCE Recovery from facial nerve transection is typically poor, but daily mechanical stimulation of the face in rats has been reported to remarkably enhance functional recovery after facial nerve transection and suture repair. This phenomenon needs additional investigation because of its important clinical implications. OBJECTIVE To determine whether automated mechanical stimulation of the...

The present study investigated the operational features of whisker-evoked EPSPs in barreloid cells and the ability of the whisker-to-barreloid pathway to relay high rates of whisker deflection in lightly anesthetized rats. Results show that lemniscal EPSPs are single-fiber events with fast rise times (<500 microsec) that strongly depress at short inter-EPSP intervals. They occur at short latenc...

The rat vibrissal (whisker) system is one of the oldest and most important models for the study of active tactile sensing and sensorimotor integration. It is well established that primary sensory neurons in the trigeminal ganglion respond to deflections of one and only one whisker, and that these neurons are strongly tuned for both the speed and direction of individual whisker deflections. Duri...

Based on measuring responses to rat whiskers as they are mechanically stimulated, one recent study suggests that barrel-related areas in layer 2/3 rat primary somatosensory cortex (S1) contain a pinwheel map of whisker motion directions. Because this map is reminiscent of topographic organization for visual direction in primary visual cortex (V1) of higher mammals, we asked whether the S1 pinwh...

Primary sensory neurons form the interface between world and brain. Their function is well-understood during passive stimulation but, under natural behaving conditions, sense organs are under active, motor control. In an attempt to predict primary neuron firing under natural conditions of sensorimotor integration, we recorded from primary mechanosensory neurons of awake, head-fixed mice as they...