PURPOSE Amphibian retinas regenerate after injury, making them ideal for studying the mechanisms of retinal regeneration, but this leaves their value as models of retinal degeneration in question. The authors asked whether the initial cellular changes after rod loss in the regenerative model Xenopus laevis mimic those observed in nonregenerative models. They also asked whether rod loss was reve...

The current study focused on the time course of the effects of the rod-and-frame illusion (RFI) on the kinematics of targeted forearm rotations. Participants were asked to reproduce perceived rod orientations by propelling a hand-held cylinder forward while rotating it to the target orientation. Rod and frame orientations were systematically varied, and cylinder rotations were normalized to tim...

BACKGROUND Although the circadian clock in the mammalian retina regulates many physiological processes in the retina, it is not known whether and how the clock controls the neuronal pathways involved in visual processing. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS By recording the light responses of rabbit axonless (A-type) horizontal cells under dark-adapted conditions in both the day and night, we foun...

PURPOSE To evaluate the neuroprotective potential of glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) in the retinal degeneration (rd/rd) mouse model of human retinitis pigmentosa. METHODS Subretinal injections of GDNF were made into rd/rd mice at 13 and 17 days of age and electroretinograms (ERGs) recorded at 22 days. Control mice received saline vehicle injections or underwent no procedur...

Effective sensory processing requires matching the gain of neural responses to the range of signals encountered. For rod vision, gain controls operate at light levels at which photons arrive rarely at individual rods, light levels too low to cause adaptation in rod phototransduction. Under these conditions, adaptation within a conserved pathway in mammalian retina maintains sensitivity as light...

The hidden nature of a glued-in rod joint presents considerable challenges with regards to quality control, and there has been minimal research on the subject fully understand influence defects performance. In this study, voids in adhesive line or glue-free zones were simulated various depths embedded rod, results compared reference sample population without defects. Withdrawal capacity steel t...

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of early motor balance and coordination training on functional recovery and brain plasticity in an ischemic rat stroke model, compared with simple locomotor exercise. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats with cortical infarcts were trained under one of four conditions: nontrained control, treadmill training, motor training on the Rota-rod, or both Rota...

Proper control of intracellular free Ca(2+) is thought to involve subsets of proteins that co-localize to mediate coordinated Ca(2+) entry and Ca(2+) extrusion. The outer segments of vertebrate rod and cone photoreceptors present one example: Ca(2+) influx is exclusively mediated via cGMP-gated channels (CNG), whereas the Na(+)/Ca(2+)-K(+) exchanger (NCKX) is the only Ca(2+) extrusion protein p...