The utricle and saccular components of the vestibular apparatus preferentially detect linear displacements of the head in the horizontal and vertical planes, respectively. We previously showed that sinusoidal linear acceleration in the horizontal plane of seated humans causes a pronounced modulation of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA), supporting a significant role for the utricular com...

BACKGROUND The probable cause of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is a degeneration of the oto lithic organs (utricle and saccule). The aim of the study is to find possible alterations in Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials (VEMP) recordings in BPPV patients, because the saccule is part of the VEMP pathway. MATERIAL/METHODS 27 BPPV patients (24 unilateral and 3 bilateral) aged 20...

The plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus, is a seasonal breeding teleost fish for which vocal-acoustic communication is essential for its reproductive success. Female midshipman use the saccule as the primary end organ for hearing to detect and locate "singing" males that produce multiharmonic advertisement calls during the summer breeding season. Previous work has shown that female aud...

OBJECTIVE Noise has been recognized as a major cause of cochlear damage resulting in both tinnitus and hearing loss. On the other hand, damage to the vestibular system, especially the saccule, can be considered as a potential problem. The cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs) have been established as a clinical test of measuring both sac-cular and inferior vestibular nerve fun...

We describe the most comprehensive study to date on gene expression during mouse inner ear (IE) organogenesis. Samples were microdissected from mouse embryos at E9-E15 in half-day intervals, a period that spans all of IE organogenesis. These included separate dissections of all discernible IE substructures such as the cochlea, utricle, and saccule. All samples were analyzed on high density expr...

BACKGROUND The vestibular lesion (VL) is required to examine the physiological function of the vestibular system in animals. Toxic chemicals or electrical apparatus have been used for the VL, however, they are not ideal as they have low specificity, and can result in unintended damage, and systemic toxic effect. NEW METHOD Localized vibration-induced VL, using an ultrasonicator, is expected t...

INTRODUCTION The daf is a large Persian frame drum used as a musical instrument in both popular and classical music which can induce a percussive sound at low frequencies (146-290 Hz) with peaks of up to 130 dBspl. The percussive sounds have a power distribution in the region of saccular sensitivity. In view of the saccular stimulation by sound in humans, we decided to use cervical vestibular-e...

The innervation patterns of vestibular saccular afferents were quantitatively investigated in pigeons using biotinylated dextran amine as a neural tracer and three-dimensional computer reconstruction. Type I hair cells were found throughout a large portion of the macula, with the highest density observed in the striola. Type II hair cells were located throughout the macula, with the highest den...

Coexistence of laryngoceles and laryngeal carcinoma is still being debated, and there are several suggested theories about the pathophysiological relationship between these two entities. We present the case of a 66-year-old male patient with bilateral laryngomucoceles and laryngeal squamos cell carcinoma. A systematic hystological examination of whole organ sections showed that the submucosal s...