Postnatal developmental changes in the response of rat primary horizontal semicircular canal neurons to sinusoidal angular accelerations.

At birth primary horizontal semicircular canal afferent neurons in the albino Wistar rat have slow, irregular spontaneous activity and insensitive, sluggish, variable responses to sinusoidal angular acceleration stimuli. There are rapid changes in the gross morphology of the rat semicircular canal in the first 4-5 days after birth, and during this time there is a rapid increase in neural gain re acceleration. Irregular neurons in rats about 6 days old have gains in the same range as irregular neurons in adult rats. However, after the gross morphological growth is complete, there continues to be a decrease in phase lag re acceleration. The causes of this developmental change in phase are unknown. It could be produced by changes in the receptor-afferent-efferent complex or by changes in the cupula or cupula-hair-cell attachment. These results with sinusoidal accelerations confirm the developmental increase in sensitivity and decrease in time constant found with constant angular accelerations (Curthoys 1979b).