The Human Vestibular Aqueduct, Endolymphatic Duct and Sac : A Morphological Study Using Micro-CT, Super Resolution Immunohistochemistry and Synchrotron Phase Contrast Imaging
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The inner ear lies sheltered in the temporal bone and consists of basically three parts: the cochlea (the hearing organ), the vestibular (the balance organ), and the endolymphatic duct (ED) and endolymphatic sac (ES). The ES and ED are located in a bony canal, the vestibular aqueduct (VA), located on the medial side of the vestibule. While the functions of the cochlea and the vestibular part of the inner ear are rather well studied, our knowledge of the function/s of the ES and ED remains limited and has intrigued scientists for centuries. Earlier studies have supported several theories, such as being an immune mediator, an aid in pressure regulation, related to the absorption of endolymph, and the production of endolymph. Otologic disorders, which affect both hearing and balance, such as Meniere’s disease (MD) and large vestibular aqueduct syndrome (LVAS), have been linked to dysfunction of the ES/ED. Studies of the human inner ear are fairly sparse. Research on the ES and ED have mainly been performed on animals, although both the anatomy and function may differ among various species. This thesis aims to further investigate the anatomy and function of the human ES and ED with the two otologic disorders MD and LVAS in mind. To achieve this, we have used novel imaging techniques, such as super-resolution structured illumination microscopy (SR-SIM), micro-computerized tomography (micro-CT), and synchrotron radiation phase-contrast imaging (SR-PCI). The material used for imaging comes from different sources: human archival temporal bones from the Uppsala temporal bone collection; human fresh-frozen cadaveric bones from our collaborators at Western University, in London, Ontario, Canada; and fresh-frozen human ES harvested during vestibular schwannoma surgery after securing ethical permission. The results of these studies describe the micro-anatomy of the VA, ED and ES down to a nanoscopic level. The discussion is based on the findings, relating them to earlier research with clinical implications regarding MD and LVAS.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".