Juxtaglomerular neurons in the mouse main olfactory bulb consist of various types of neurons, especially classified by their chemical properties such as transmitter-related molecules and calcium binding proteins. In addition several transcription factors have been revealed to characterize neuronal subpopulations. In this study we examined the immunoreactivities of two transcription ...

Excessive coughing is one of the most common reasons for seeking medical advice, yet the available therapies for treating cough disorders are inadequate. Humans can voluntarily cough, choose to suppress their cough, and are acutely aware of an irritation that is present in their airways. This indicates a significant level ...

Adaptive cytoprotection is a concept to counteract against the gastric mucosal injury caused by stress, strong irritants and drugs such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. The process is mediated through diverse mediators and mechanisms. Studies on adaptive cytoprotection began from the discovery of prostaglandin (PG)-dependent and PG-independent pathways, followed by the ...

OVERVIEW: Nearly everyone will experience motion sickness at some point. It's thought to be caused by confusion among the vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive systems; the associated nausea is thought to involve neurons in the hypothalamus and a portion of the cerebral cortex. Although many remedies are available, none has been ...

Sympathetic neurons are capable of extensive regeneration following axonal injury. To investigate the response to axotomy of colon-projecting neurons (CPN) localized in the porcine sympathetic chain ganglia (SChG), the retrograde Fast Blue (FB) tracer, axonal transection and double immunohistochemistry methods were applied. The CPN were localized exclusively in the lumbar ...

Glutamate transmission from vestibular end organs to central vestibular nuclear complex (VNC) plays important role in transferring sensory information about head position and movements. Three isoforms of vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUTs) have been considered so far the most specific markers for glutamatergic neurons/cells. In this study, VGLUT1 and VGLUT2 were ...

In this issue of Neuron, McElvain et al. demonstrate for the first time plasticity at the synapse between vestibular nerve afferents and their postsynaptic targets in the medial vestibular nuclei. This new type of plasticity, which is gated by inhibition, is well suited to drive motor learning during adaptation of the ...

Neurons in the medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) show a wide range of axonal projection pathways, intrinsic firing properties, and responses to head movements. To determine whether MVN neurons participating in the vestibulocular reflexes (VOR) have distinctive electrophysiological properties related to their output pathways, a new preparation was devised using transverse ...

This article reviews recent studies that have provided experimental evidence for mechanisms of neural and synaptic plasticity in the brain during vestibular compensation, the behavioural recovery that takes place following peripheral vestibular lesions. First, experimental evidence from animal studies indicates that an unbalanced vestibular commissural system is a fundamental cause ...

Background Do central mechanisms account for the variability of clinical recovery following peripheral vestibulo-cochlear lesions? Objective To investigate structural (morphological) plasticity in the human brain following unilateral vestibulo-cochlear lesions which might contribute to central vestibular compensation. Methods The authors compared regional grey matter volume (GMV) changes in patients after surgical ...

Previous studies have demonstrated that following intratympanic gentamicin application in the guinea pigs, vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) were absent regardless of stimulation mode using either air-conducted sound (ACS) stimuli or galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS). Ultrastructurally, both type I hair cells and their calyx terminals were distorted in the saccular ...

We tested the action of proline-rich peptide (PRP-1) and cobra venom Naja Naja Oxiana (NOX) on Deiters' nucleus neurons at 3rd, 15th and 35th days after unilateral labyrinthectomy (UL). Early and late tetanic, post-tetanic potentiation and depression of Deiters'neurons to bilateral high frequency stimulation of hypothalamic supraoptic and paraventricualar nuclei ...

Natural behaviours, and hence neuronal populations, often combine multiple sensory cues to improve stimulus detectability or discriminability as we explore the environment. Here we review one such example of multisensory cue integration in the dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd) of the macaque visual cortex. Visual and vestibular cues about ...

OBJECTIVE: Patients who have had vestibular neuritis (VN) show a remarkable clinical improvement especially in gait and posture >6 months after disease onset. METHODS: Voxel-based morphometry was used to detect the VN-induced changes in gray and white matter by means of structural magnetic resonance imaging. Twenty-two patients were compared an ...

Motor learning is required for the reacquisition of skills that have been compromised as a result of brain lesion or disease, as well as for the acquisition of new skills. Behaviors with well characterized anatomy and physiology are required to yield significant insight into changes that occur in the brain ...

Vestibulo-ocular reflexes (VOR) assist retinal image stabilization during vertebrate locomotion thereby ensuring accurate visual perception. The importance of this motor behavior for animal survival requires that the underlying circuitry and all individual components are fully developed and functional as soon as post-embryonic animals initiate self-motion. Recent progress on the genetic, ...

The parietoinsular vestibular cortex (PIVC) is a large area in the lateral sulcus with neurons that respond to vestibular stimulation. Here we compare the properties of PIVC cells with those of neurons in brain stem, cerebellum, and thalamus. Most PIVC cells modulated during both translational and rotational head motion. Translation ...

Spontaneous activity in medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) neurons is modulated by synaptic inputs. These inputs are crucial for maintaining gaze and posture and contribute to vestibular compensation after lesions of peripheral vestibular organs. We investigated how chronically attenuated glycinergic input affects excitability of MVN neurons. To this end we used ...

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive, low-cost and easy-to-use technique that can be applied to modify cerebral excitability. This is achieved by weak direct currents to shift the resting potential of cortical neurons. These currents are applied by attaching two electrodes (usually one anode and one cathode) to ...

Vestibular information is critical for the control of balance, posture, and eye movements. Signals from the receptors, the semicircular canals and otoliths, are carried by the eighth nerve and distributed to the four nuclei of the vestibular nuclear complex, the VNC. However, anatomical and physiological data suggest that many additional ...

The nodulus and uvula (lobules X and IX of the vermis) receive mossy fibers from both vestibular afferents and vestibular nuclei neurons and are thought to play a role in spatial orientation. Their properties relate to a sensory ambiguity of the vestibular periphery: otolith afferents respond identically to translational (inertial) ...

We examined the functional maturation of canal-related brainstem neurons in Sprague-Dawley rats at postnatal day (P)1 to adult. Conscious animals were subjected to cycles of angular acceleration and deceleration so as to selectively activate hair cells of the horizontal semicircular canals. Brainstem neurons were monitored for c-fos expression by immuno-hybridization ...

Kv3 voltage-gated K(+) channels are important in shaping neuronal excitability and are abundant in the CNS, with each Kv3 gene exhibiting a unique expression pattern. Mice lacking the gene encoding for the Kv3.3 subunit exhibit motor deficits. Furthermore, mutations in this gene have been linked to the human disease spinocerebellar ...

Dizziness and impaired balance are common complaints after traumatic brain injury as a result of injuries to many systems. Ambient visual and vestibular system impairments are strong contributors to imbalance and dizziness, often leading to problems with spatial orientation and gaze stability during movement. The purpose of this review is ...

A striking feature of vestibular hair cells is the polarized arrangement of their stereocilia as the basis for their directional sensitivity. In mammals, each of the vestibular end organs is characterized by a distinct distribution of these polarized cells. We utilized the technique of post-fixation transganglionic neuronal tracing with fluorescent ...

Responses of vestibular-only translation sensitive (VOTS) neurons in vestibular nuclei of two squirrel monkeys were studied at multiple frequencies to three-dimensional translations and rotations. A novel frequency-dependent spatiotemporal analysis examined in each neuron whether complex models, with unrestricted response dynamics in three-dimensional (3D) space, provided significantly better fits than restricted ...

Animal and functional imaging studies had identified cortical structures such as the parieto-insular vestibular cortex, the retro-insular cortex, or the anterior cingulate cortex belonging to a vestibular cortical network. Basic animal studies revealed that endorphins might be important transmitters involved in cerebral vestibular processing. The aim of the present study ...

We report a case of vestibular schwannoma with absent vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) to clicks but normal auditory brainstem responses, caloric responses, and vestibular evoked myogenic potentials to 500 Hz tone bursts. This patient visited our clinic with complaint of sudden right hearing loss. This was the third episode ...

INTRODUCTION: Neurogenic vestibular evoked potentials that are recorded from the scalp have so far been recorded in the form of N3 (click air-conducted), N5 (tone air-conducted), and P10 (bone-conducted stimulus) waveforms. The purpose of this study is to find other vestibular waveforms obtained with air-conducted sound. METHODS: The experiments were ...

Information about the position and movement of the head in space is coded by vestibular receptors and relayed to four nuclei that comprise the vestibular nuclear complex (VNC). Many additional brainstem nuclei are involved in the processing of vestibular information, receiving signals either directly from the eighth nerve or indirectly ...

Central vestibular neurons receive substantial inputs from the contralateral labyrinth through inhibitory and excitatory brainstem commissural pathways. The functional organization of these pathways was studied by a multi-methodological approach in isolated frog whole brains. Retrogradely labeled vestibular commissural neurons were primarily located in the superior vestibular nucleus in rhombomeres 2/3 ...

The parieto-insular vestibular cortex (PIVC) is thought to contain an important representation of vestibular information. Here we describe responses of macaque PIVC neurons to three-dimensional (3D) vestibular and optic flow stimulation. We found robust vestibular responses to both translational and rotational stimuli in the retroinsular (Ri) and adjacent secondary somatosensory ...

To examine whether subgroups of vestibular nuclear neurons encode different frequency oscillation of horizontal linear motion, Fos immunohistochemistry was used to document neuronal subpopulations that were functionally activated by such otolithic stimulations. Conscious rats at P7, P14 and adult were subjected to sinusoidal linear acceleration along the transverse axis on ...

We describe the case of a 33-year-old man with complex partial seizures characterized by the feeling of being projected outside his body, including dissociation of "mind and self from body" (disembodiment), followed by vestibular vertigo due to right frontal lobe epilepsy caused by an oligodendroglioma. We distinguish the patient's ictal ...

Disequilibrium, dizziness, vertigo and falls are vestibular system-related problems which are very common especially in older people. In order to clarify these age-related disorders one must understand first the age-related changes in the properties of vestibular neurons that are responsible for equilibrium. The responsiveness of medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) neurons ...

To understand the roles of the vestibular system in perceptual detection and discrimination of self-motion, it is critical to account for response variability in computing the sensitivity of vestibular neurons. Here we study responses of neurons with no eye movement sensitivity in the vestibular (VN) and rostral fastigial nuclei (FN) ...

Artificial stimulation of the peripheral vestibular system has been shown to improve ownership of body parts in neurological patients, suggesting vestibular contributions to bodily self-consciousness. Here, we investigated whether galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) interferes with the mechanisms underlying ownership, touch, and the localization of one's own hand in healthy participants ...

In this article we will discuss our current knowledge of multisensory vestibular structures and their functions in the human cortex. Most of it derives from brain activation studies with PET and fMRI in humans conducted over the last decade. They have confirmed the existence of several separate and distinct cortical ...

Vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) gain adaptation, a longstanding experimental model of cerebellar learning, utilizes sites of plasticity in both cerebellar cortex and brainstem. However, the mechanisms by which the activity of cortical Purkinje cells may guide synaptic plasticity in brainstem vestibular neurons are unclear. Theoretical analyses indicate that vestibular plasticity should ...

The vestibular system provides the primary input of our sense of balance and spatial orientation. Dysfunction of the vestibular system can severely affect a person's quality of life. Therefore, understanding the molecular basis of vestibular neuron survival, maintenance, and innervation of the target sensory epithelia is fundamental. Here we report ...

Multisensory neurons tuned to both vestibular and visual motion (optic flow) signals are found in several cortical areas in the dorsal visual stream. Here we examine whether such convergence occurs subcortically in the macaque thalamus. We searched the ventral posterior nuclei, including the anterior pulvinar, as well as the ventro-lateral ...

We investigated the effects of the neurosteroid 17beta-estradiol (E(2)) on the evoked and spontaneous activity of rat medial vestibular nucleus (MVN) neurons in brainstem slices. E(2) enhances the synaptic response to vestibular nerve stimulation in type B neurons and depresses the spontaneous discharge in both type A and B neurons. ...

The activation of the efferent vestibular system modifies the basal discharge and the dynamic response of primary-afferent neurons to head motion and gravitational stimuli. The efferent input to afferent neurons is mediated primarily by cholinergic synapses that activate both muscarinic and nicotinic receptors. Previously we had shown that the muscarinic-acetylcholine-receptor ...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this investigation carried out with guinea pigs was to study the possible effects of a gentamicin treatment on the saccular macula and on its afferent vestibular ganglion neurons. METHODS: The gentamicin-induced impairment was analyzed using vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) elicited by both click and galvanic vestibular ...

The process of vestibular compensation includes both behavioral and neuronal recovery after unilateral loss of peripheral vestibular organs. The mechanisms that underlie this process are poorly understood. Previous research has shown the presence of both gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA(A)) and glycine receptors in the medial vestibular nuclei (MVN). It ...

The key signs and symptoms of vestibular neuritis are rotatory vertigo with an acute onset lasting several days, horizontal spontaneous nystagmus (with a rotational component) toward the unaffected ear, a pathologic head-impulse test toward the affected ear, a deviation of the subjective visual vertical toward the affected ear, postural imbalance ...

In physiological conditions, neurogenesis occurs in restricted regions of the adult mammalian brain, giving rise to integrated neurons into functional networks. In pathological or postlesional conditions neurogenesis and astrogenesis can also occur, as demonstrated in the deafferented vestibular nuclei after immediate unilateral vestibular neurectomy (UVN) in the adult cat. To ...

Recent studies have described vestibular responses in the dorsal medial superior temporal area (MSTd), a region of extrastriate visual cortex thought to be involved in self-motion perception. The pathways by which vestibular signals are conveyed to area MSTd are currently unclear, and one possibility is that vestibular signals are already ...

The effect of stimulation of the vestibular nuclear complex (VN) on the masseteric monosynaptic reflex (MMR) was studied in anesthetized rats. The MMR was evoked by electrical stimulation of the mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus and was recorded, bilaterally, as the electromyographic responses of the masseter muscles. Conditioning electrical stimulation of the ...

Vestibular information is essential for the control of posture, balance, and eye movements. The vestibular nerve projects to the four nuclei of the vestibular nuclear complex (VNC), as well as to several additional brainstem nuclei and the cerebellum. We have found that expression of the calcium-binding proteins calretinin (CR) and ...