Surface area and sensory cell population of the vestibular maculae in the Bullfrog

Abstract

The surface areas of the utricular and saccular maculae were measured with a digitizer on SEM micrograph. This was not possible in the lagenar macula because lagenar macula was not a single plane. The hair cell population of three maculae was obtained by counting each hair cell on the micrograph. The results were as follows.: The mean value of the surface area was 0.34mm² in the utricular macula and 0.24mm² in the saccular macula. Hair cell population was 9946 in the utricular macula, 2583 in the saccular macula, and 3610 in the lagenar macula. Hair cell density of the utricule was much higher than that of the saccule.