in the present study, eight specimens of sheep (>1 year) of both sexes were dissected to provide a comprehensive description of the weight, allocation and nerve branches of the cranial cervical ganglion. the cranial cervical ganglion was found beneath the mandibular salivary gland. it was located ventromedial to tympanic bulla and ventrally to atlantic fossa. in three out of eight animals it wa...

We surveyed the potential contacts between an identified type of bipolar cell and retinal ganglion cells in the mouse. By crossing two existing mouse strains (line 357 and line GFP-M), we created a double transgenic strain in which GFP is expressed by all members of a single type of ON cone bipolar cell and a sparse, mixed population of retinal ganglion cells. The GFP-expressing bipolar cells a...

The origin of nerve fibers to the rat middle cerebral artery was studied by retrograde tracing with the fluorescent tracer True Blue (TB) in combination with immunocytochemistry to known perivascular peptides. Application of TB to the middle cerebral artery labeled nerve cell bodies in the ipsilateral superior cervical ganglion, the otic ganglion, the sphenopalatine ganglion, the trigeminal gan...

Progression of neurodegeneration in disease and injury is influenced by the response of individual neurons to stressful stimuli and whether this response includes mechanisms to counter declining function. Transient receptor potential (TRP) cation channels transduce a variety of disease-relevant stimuli and can mediate diverse stress-dependent changes in physiology, both presynaptic and postsyna...

Glaucoma is a multi-factorial optic neuropathy characterized by a loss of retinal ganglion cells with resulting visual impairment. The macula region contains over 50% of all retinal ganglion cells and is likely an ideal region to detect early cell loss and changes over time because of the high density of cells. Retinal ganglion cells encompass three layers in the retina, 1) the retinal nerve fi...

Our goal was to understand how patterns of excitation and inhibition, interacting across arrays of ganglion cells in space and time, generate the spiking output pattern for each ganglion cell type. We presented the retina with a 1-s flashed square, 600 microm on a side, and measured patterns of excitation and inhibition over an 1,800-microm-wide region encompassing many ganglion cells. Excitato...

Zuckerkandl’s organ (ZK) is an extra adrenal para-ganglion and has the ability to express glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and transforming growth factor (TGF). It is also a source of dopamine and norepinephrine. In the present study, the neuroprotective and restorative potential of ZK was studied by transplanting it into the striatum of adult rats either before or after the i...

Neurons in both vertebrate and invertebrate eyes are organized in regular arrays. Although much is known about the mechanisms involved in the formation of the regular arrays of neurons found in invertebrate eyes, much less is known about the mechanisms of formation of neuronal mosaics in the vertebrate eye. The purpose of these studies was to determine the cellular mechanisms that pattern the f...

Some apparent characteristics of ganglion cell death in glaucoma Glaucoma is a progressive optic neuropathy with characteristic optic disc changes and associated visual field defects. 2 The pattern and progression of visual field loss due to ganglion cell death varies between glaucoma patients suggesting that there is some variability in the magnitude of the insult responsible for the cell loss...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate (i) the effect of diabetes on retinal ganglion cell death in diabetic dogs and mice, (ii) the effect of prolonged glycemic control on diabetes-induced death of retinal ganglion cells, (iii) whether retinal ganglion cell death in diabetes is associated with degeneration of retinal capillaries, and (iv) the effect of diet on diabetes-induced de...