This report describes a case of malignant granular cell tumour arising in the mediastinum, detailing the investigations undertaken to reach this rare diagnosis. A 63-year-old man was referred from the Pacific Islands for investigation of a 8cm mediastinal mass extending into the left pleura and associated with pleural nodules and pleural effusion. Needle aspiration via bronchoscopy yielded insu...

Animal studies have shown that prenatal stress is able to induce long-lasting neurobiological and behavioral alterations in adult offspring. In spite of the facts that hippocampus is sensitive to early developmental influences and its known functional importance in learning and memory, few data are available on the effect of prenatal stress on the structure of hippocampus. Therefore, this study...

Information processing of the cerebellar granular layer composed of granule and Golgi cells is regarded as an important first step toward the cerebellar computation. Our previous theoretical studies have shown that granule cells can exhibit random alternation between burst and silent modes, which provides a basis of population representation of the passage-of-time (POT) from the onset of extern...

The fine structure of filiform papillae on the normal human tongue was examined level by level, from the basal layer to the surface, in specimens taken from the dorsal side of the lingual body. Human lingual epithelia showed three distinct regions: epithelia on the anterior and on the posterior sides of filiform papillae and an interpapillary epithelium. While the basal and the squamous cell la...

Exposure of the developing central nervous system (CNS) to ethanol leads to impaired cellular migration. In the cerebellar cortex, cell proliferation occurs in the early postnatal period. Granular cells generated in the external granular layer (EGL) migrate to their final destination at the internal granular layer. In this work, we examined the ethanol-induced alterations in cerebellar granular...

Mutant and normal Xenopus laevis embryos (o-nu, i-nu, 2-nu) were examined in the electron microscope after glutaraldehyde and/or osmium-tetroxide fixation. During cleavage both o-nu and wild-type embryos contain multiple small nucleolar bodies, less than 1 ft in diameter, composed mainly of a fibrous material. By the end of cleavage or beginning of gastrulation, granular caps develop on the fib...

Changes in the structure of the nucleolus during the cell cycle of the Chinese hamster cell in vitro were studied. Quantitative electron microscopic techniques were used to establish the size and volume changes in nucleolar structures. In mitosis, nucleolar remnants, "persistent nucleoli," consisting predominantly of ribosome-like granular material, and a granular coating on the chromosomes wer...

The stratified squamous epithelium of the chicken and pigeon esophageal mucosa was studied mainly with the electron microscope. 1. The basal and spinous cells contained well-developed Golgi complexes, many mitochondria and multivesicular bodies. In the chicken basal cell a centriole and a single cilium were found. Both cells were rich in free ribosomes; the cisternae of the granular endoplasmic...

Granular cell proliferation in the adult hippocampus decreases during aging and after chronic stress, while it can be increased by physical activity or treatment with the antidepressant fluoxetine. We investigated whether the physical and cognitive stimulation accompanied by stress in the commonly used Morris water maze affects the rate of proliferation and whether the induced changes can be in...

The skin and skin secretion of Chinese toad Bufo gargarizans have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine. However, the exact types and location of bioactive substances in Bufo gargarizans skin still have not been fully elucidated. The aim of the study was to investigate the distribution and density of six types of gastrointestinal (GI) hormone immunoreactive (IR) cells in the skin and p...