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Abstract
This study presents evidence in support of the hypothesis that one of the sites of
failure during noise-induced temporary threshold shift (TTS) is the afferent synapse
between auditory hair cells and auditory nerve fibers. Our results show clear evidence
indicating changes in the quantity of afferent synapses and the morphology of presynaptic
structures in the alligator lizard auditory hair cells during TTS. In TTS hair cells
there are statistically significant decreases in: 1) the number of afferent synapses,
2) the number of synaptic vesicles at the afferent synapses, 3) the size of synaptic
bodies, and 4) the packing density of synaptic vesicles around the synaptic body.
These results suggest that the presynaptic components of the afferent synapse reflect
the functional state of the synapse, and that the reduction of these synapses, both
in number and component size, contributes to TTS.