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. 2015 Feb 16;7:7. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2015.00007

Figure 5.

Figure 5

Comparative study of cochlear morphology after noise insult. Comparison of the spiral limbus (SL) (A,B), organ of Corti (D,E) and spiral ligament (Spl) (H,I) of control (A,D,H) and VS noise-exposed (B,E,I) mice at the cochlear middle level. Main features observed after short time noise exposure included fibrocyte loss at SL (B) and loss of type IV fibrocytes at Spl (white arrowheads at I). The organ of Corti reveals an essentially normal gross anatomy (no collapse of tunnel of Corti, Hensen cells or spaces of Nuel). The different noise exposure conditions show similar cytoarchitectural alterations with no evident differences among them. At the focal plane shown, phalloidin-stained whole mounts for actin exhibit the disrupted sequence (arrows in C) of otherwise well-defined outlines of OHC and a substantial OHC loss 28 days after VS noise insult (C,F,G,J). Scale bars: 100 µm (A,B,D,E,H,I), 25 µm (C,F,G,J). BM, basilar membrane; IHC, inner hair cells; OHC, outer hair cells; TM, tectorial membrane; SL, spiral limbus; Spl, spiral ligament.