The microcirculation of the bullfrog kidney was studied by scanning electron microscopy of the corrosion casts. The bullfrog kidney derives its blood supply from a dual origin: one is from the posterior half of the body via the renal portal veins and the dorso-lumbar veins, the other is from the urogenital arteries. The renal portal veins are linked with the hepatic portal system through the an...

UNLABELLED Hearing loss among the elderly correlates with diminished social, mental, and physical health. Age-related cochlear cell death does occur, but growing anatomical evidence suggests that synaptic rearrangements on sensory hair cells also contribute to auditory functional decline. Here we present voltage-clamp recordings from inner hair cells of the C57BL/6J mouse model of age-related h...

BACKGROUND The auditory efferent system has unique neuroanatomical pathways that connect the cerebral cortex with sensory receptor cells. Pyramidal neurons located in layers V and VI of the primary auditory cortex constitute descending projections to the thalamus, inferior colliculus, and even directly to the superior olivary complex and to the cochlear nucleus. Efferent pathways are connected ...

Large intersubject variabilities in acoustic injury are known to occur in both humans and animals; however, the mechanisms underlying such differences are poorly understood. The olivocochlear efferent system has been hypothesized to play a significant role in protecting the cochlea from noise overexposure. In this study, we demonstrate that a newly developed test for determining average efferen...

The efferent system of the ear possesses several distinct functions, in particular noise protection, mediation of selective attention and improvement of signal to noise ratio. It also supports adaptation and frequency selectivity by modification of the micromechanical properties of outer hair cells. There are many differences in anatomy and physiology between the medial and lateral olivocochlea...

Objective: There could be efferent system damage in individuals with type II diabetes mellitus. The study attempts to determine the efferent auditory system functioning through contralateral suppression of otoacoustic emissions (OAE) and speech perception in noise (SPIN) in individuals with type II diabetes mellitus (DM). Method: The study was carried out on twenty five participants (50 ears) w...

The peripheral vestibular organs have long been known to receive a bilateral efferent innervation from the brain stem. However, the functional role of the efferent vestibular system has remained elusive. In this study, we investigated efferent-mediated responses in vestibular afferents of alert behaving primates (macaque monkey). We found that efferent-mediated rotational responses could be obt...

BACKGROUND Whether cardiac reinnervation occurs after transplantation remains controversial. If reinnervation does occur, how sympathetic and parasympathetic efferent neurons do this remains unknown. METHODS Power spectral analysis of heart rate variability was assessed for 1 year after cardiac autotransplantation in 9 dogs. After induction of anesthesia 13 months after transplantation, cardi...

A circadian clock in the Limulus brain generates efferent optic nerve activity at night. The endogenous activity begins near dusk, continues during the night, and stops near dawn. Approximately 10 to 20 efferent fibers in each lateral optic nerve trunk fire in close synchrony with one another and with the efferent fibers in the opposite nerve trunk producing bursts of nerve impulses at night. T...