The cranial nerves

With the exception of the olfactory and optic nerves, all cranial nerves enter or leave the brain stem. Three of the cranial nerves are purely sensory (I, II and VIII), five are motor (III, IV, VI, XI and XII) and the remaining nerves (V, VII, IX and X) are mixed. The olfactory nerve will be discussed in Chap. 14, the optic nerve in Chap. 8 and the cochlear nerve in Chap. 7. The nuclei of the cranial nerves are arranged in an orderly, more or less columnar fashion in the brain stem: motor nuclei, somatomotor, branchiomotor and visceromotor (parasympathetic), derived from the basal plate, are located medially, whereas sensory nuclei, somatosensory, viscerosensory and vestibulocochlear, derived from the alar plate, are found lateral to the sulcus limitans. The cranial nerves innervate structures in the head and neck as well as visceral organs in the thorax and abdomen. The cranial nerves control eye movements, mastication, vocalization, facial expression, respiration, heart rate and digestion. One or several of the cranial nerves are often involved in lesions of the brain stem, of which the location can usually be determined if the topographical anatomy of the cranial nerves and their nuclei is known. Several examples are shown in Clinical cases. Following a few notes on the development of the brain stem and congenital cranial dysinnervation disorders (Sect. 6.2), the following structures will be discussed: (1) ocular motor nerves and the effects of lesions of individual ocular motor nerves (Sect. 6.3); (2) eye movements and some disorders affecting them (Sect. 6.4); (3) the trigeminal nerve and changes in the blink reflex (Sect. 6.5); (4) the facial nerve and peripheral facial nerve paralysis (Sect. 6.6); (5) the gustatory system (Sect. 6.7); (6) the vestibulocochlear nerve, vestibular control and some peripheral and central vestibular syndromes (Sect. 6.8); and (7) the last four cranial nerves and some disorders affecting them (Sects. 6.9 and 6.10). The English terms of the Terminologia Neuroanatomica are used throughout.</p

A comparison of methods for temporal analysis of aoristic crime

Objectives: To test the accuracy of various methods previously proposed (and one new method) to estimate offence times where the actual time of the event is not known. Methods: For 303 thefts of pedal cycles from railway stations, the actual offence time was determined from closed-circuit television and the resulting temporal distribution compared against commonly-used estimated distributions using circular statistics and analysis of residuals. Results: Aoristic analysis and allocation of a random time to each offence allow accurate estimation of peak offence times. Commonly-used deterministic methods were found to be inaccurate and to produce misleading results. Conclusions: It is important that analysts use the most accurate methods for temporal distribution approximation to ensure any resource decisions made on the basis of peak times are reliable

Exotic fish in exotic plantations: a multi-scale approach to understand amphibian occurrence in the mediterranean region

Globally, amphibian populations are threatened by a diverse range of factors including habitat destruction and alteration. Forestry practices have been linked with low diversity and abundance of amphibians. The effect of exotic Eucalyptus spp. plantations on amphibian communities has been studied in a number of biodiversity hotspots, but little is known of its impact in the Mediterranean region. Here, we identify the environmental factors influencing the presence of six species of amphibians (the Caudata Pleurodeles waltl, Salamandra salamandra, Lissotriton boscai, Triturus marmoratus and the anurans Pelobates cultripes and Hyla arborea/meridionalis) occupying 88 ponds. The study was conducted in a Mediterranean landscape dominated by eucalypt plantations alternated with traditional use (agricultural, montados and native forest) at three different scales: local (pond), intermediate (400 metres radius buffer) and broad (1000 metres radius buffer). Using the Akaike Information Criterion for small samples (AICc), we selected the top-ranked models for estimating the probability of occurrence of each species at each spatial scale separately and across all three spatial scales, using a combination of covariates from the different magnitudes. Models with a combination of covariates at the different spatial scales had a stronger support than those at individual scales. The presence of predatory fish in a pond had a strong effect on Caudata presence. Permanent ponds were selected by Hyla arborea/meridionalis over temporary ponds. Species occurrence was not increased by a higher density of streams, but the density of ponds impacted negatively on Lissotriton boscai. The proximity of ponds occupied by their conspecifics had a positive effect on the occurrence of Lissotriton boscai and Pleurodeles waltl. Eucalypt plantations had a negative effect on the occurrence of the newt Lissotriton boscai and anurans Hyla arborea/meridionalis, but had a positive effect on the presence of Salamandra salamandra, while no effect on any of the other species was detected. In conclusion, eucalypts had limited effects on the amphibian community at the intermediate and broad scales, but predatory fish had a major impact when considering all the scales combined. The over-riding importance of introduced fish as a negative impact suggests that forest managers should prevent new fish introductions and eradicate fish from already-occupied ponds whenever possible