Changes in expression of vascular endothelial growth factor and its receptors in the aging mouse cochlea, part 1: the normal-hearing mouse.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Presbycusis is the most common degenerative otologic condition. New research is pointing toward vascular changes within the cochlea with age. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors, Flt-1 and Flk-1, are important regulators of angiogenesis. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to characterize the hearing, VEGF expression, and vasculature of young and old Swiss Webster (SW) mice. METHODS: Young (4 weeks, n = 14) and aged (32-36 weeks; n = 14) SW mice were used. Hearing was evaluated using the auditory brainstem response. Changes in VEGF, Flt-1, and Flk-1 expression and histology were evaluated by immunohistochemistry and real-time polymerase chain reaction (quantitative PCR). RESULTS: Aged SW mice demonstrated clinically stable hearing with age with mean hearing thresholds dropping 5.7, 4.2, 6.5, and 10.9 dB peSPL with age at 4, 8, 16, and 32 kHz pure-tone stimuli, respectively. Immunohistochemistry showed the presence of VEGF, Flt-1, and Flk-1 in the stria vascularis, spiral ganglion, and organ of Corti. Strong expression was found within the hair cells and the stria vascularis. Immunohistochemistry and qPCR demonstrated no difference in expression levels between age groups or between apical and basal turns of the cochlea. Microscopy demonstrated no difference in the number or density of stria vascularis vessels between age groups. CONCLUSIONS: We describe a mouse model of stable hearing with aging. Stria vascularis vasculature and expression of VEGF, Flt-1, and Flk-1 do not change with age, and there appears to be no apical to basal differential expression. These results provide valuable normalized data to compare VEGF expression and vasculature patterns to other mouse strains.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 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".