Temporal relationship between the expression of fos, jun and krox-24 in the guinea pig vestibular nuclei during the development of vestibular compensation for unilateral vestibular deafferentation.

Immediately following unilateral vestibular deafferentation (UVD), expression of the c-fos protein increased in both vestibular nucleus complexes (VNCs). By 10 h post-UVD, c-fos proteins were more evident in the bilateral medial vestibular nuclei (MVN), but their expression had decreased in the bilateral superior vestibular nuclei (SVN) and lateral vestibular nuclei (LVN) compared to immediately post-UVD. At 50 h post-UVD, c-fos protein expression was still evident in the bilateral VNC, but had decreased relative to immediately post-UVD. Immediately post-UVD, c-jun protein expression increased in the bilateral VNC, but was more noticeable at 10 h post-UVD. By 50 h post-UVD, c-jun protein expression had decreased markedly throughout the bilateral VNC. The krox-24 protein could not be seen anywhere in the immediate post-UVD condition. However, it was expressed at a low level in the bilateral MVN at 10 h post-UVD; by 50 h post-UVD, this expression had decreased. No evidence of apoptosis was observed following UVD.