To understand the central pathway of the primary vestibular nerve, it is necessary to comprehend the structure of the vestibular nuclei in the brainstem. The authors report the three dimensional image of the major vestibular nuclei with relation to the brainstem of the Mongolian gerbil. Serial sections of 50 μm were made with the brainstem of the Mongolian gerbil. Using a Camera-lucida, we traced serial sections on blotting papers. They were aligned using the midline and fourth ventricle of the brainstem with two vertical reference points. Image analyzer and VIDS VI program were used to get the final image.
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