Infection thresholds, widely used in disease epidemiology, may operate on host abundance and, if present, on vector abundance. For wildlife populations, host and vector abundances often vary greatly across years and consequently the threshold may be crossed regularly, both up- and downward. Moreover, vector and host abundances may be interdependent, which may affect the infection dynamics. Theo...

The auditory system relies on spectral notches in the binaural environmental transfer function (BETF) as cues for localization of sources in the median plane. Experiments have shown that the BETF for gerbils in free space, regularly termed the head related transfer function (HRTF), contains a single notch in the ultrasonic range, while the BETF for a gerbil standing on a solid surface contains ...

Fusiform cells represent the major class of dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) projection neuron. Although much is understood about their physiology and anatomy, there remain unexplored issues with important functional implications. These include interspecies differences in DCN physiology and the nature of the cell-to-cell variations in fusiform cell physiology. To address these issues, a quantitati...

Abttract: Pathophysiological Responses to Acute Cerebral Ischemia in the Gerbil • The left carotid artery of healthy, male gerbils was surgically ligated to induce a state of cerebral ischemia. The animals were sacrificed two, four, six, 12, 24 and 48 hours postligation to determine whether the induced cerebral ischemia would be reflected by changes in blood chemistry. The gerbil, unlike the ra...

The endocrine system is a complex network of glands and hormones that regulates many of the body's functions; including growth, development and maturation, as well as the way several organs operate. The prostate is an important target of hormones and its functional maturity and development are influenced by steroids levels. Our research group has been evaluating the potential effects of the ste...

The Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus) is susceptible to infection with Giardia duodenalis trophozoites. Each animal was orally infected with 0.5 ml Diamond's TYIS-33 culture medium containing 10(6) trophozoites. Cysts were then collected and concentrated by sucrose gradient centrifugation. G. duodenalis cysts were first observed in feces on day 5 post-infection. The characteristic of G. ...

The ill effects of carotid artery occlusion or ligation vary in man and experimental animals according to surgical techniques, environmental conditions, diet, stress, sex, age, strain of the animal, blood pressure, the state of cardiopulmonary system, and other diverse factors. Unilateral carotid artery ligation in most small laboratory animals is an innocuous procedure. The gerbil, a desert ra...

Supra-Characteristic-Frequency Response in Gerbil Auditory Nerve Frequency Tuning Curves

The functional significance of male gerbil scent-marks was investigated in four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, males in a novel test environment marked more, groomed more, and urinated less in the presence of odors of a strange male than in their absence. Female odors elicited male marking more than did male odors. In Experiments 3 and 4, females were selectively less aggressive toward fa...