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The fine structure of the stria vascularis of the guinea-pig inner ear

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Summary

The stria vascularis lining the external wall of the cochlear duct is a thick epithelium consisting of three cell types, with numerous blood capillaries embedded within it. The columnar marginal cells have extensive lateral and basal infoldings of the plasma membrane with each compartment, formed by these infoldings, filled with clusters of mitochondria. Marginal cells have numerous pinocytotic-like vesicles located in the apical region and few short microvilli on the luminal surface. The surface of the cell has a thick unit membrane.

Intermediate and basal cells are irregular in shape, have a clear cytoplasm with a few organelles and some pigmentary inclusions and have extensive cytoplasmic processes which interdigitate with the other cells or make direct contac with the basal lamina of the capillaries. Ascending prolongations from a number of basal cells isolate the infolded membrane complex of each marginal cell in a cup-like arrangement. Basal cells limit the stria vascularis and demarcate it from the spiral ligament and from the spiral prominence.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    E. L. Rodriguez Echandia & Mario H. Burgos

  2. Instituto de Histología y Embriología de la, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina

    E. L. Rodriguez Echandia & Mario H. Burgos

Authors
  1. E. L. Rodriguez Echandia
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  2. Mario H. Burgos
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Additional information

Research supported in part by the U.S.P.H. National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant GM 10182-09 and in part by a Bockefeiler Foundation School grant RF 62051.

This work was initiated during the senior author's tenure of a fellowship from the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas of the Republic of Argentina and was continued under a fellowship of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Don W. Fawcett's assistance in critical reading of the manuscript.

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Echandia, E.L.R., Burgos, M.H. The fine structure of the stria vascularis of the guinea-pig inner ear. Zeitschrift für Zellforschung 67, 600–619 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00340327

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00340327

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