Conduction block in the carpal tunnel syndrome

Abstract

A proportion of the females from a colony of the mosquito Aedes togoi Theobald, orginating from Taiwan, were able to lay eggs without taking a blood meal. Rearing the larvae on a protein-rich diet of powdered liver, supplemented by casein or glutamic acid, enabled up to 74·4 per cent of females from the original colony, and up to 100 per cent of females from a colony established by selection through two generations of autogenous eggs, to initiate ovary development beyond the resting stage by the deposition of protein/carbohydrate yolk in the oöcyte. The results obtained were, however, very variable. The size of female reared and the ability to deposit protein/carbohydrate yolk in the oöcyte were closely related. Both of these characteristics measure the adequacy of larval nutrition and this was impossible to control by current practices for mosquito culture in the laboratory.Larval nutrition affected all stages of growth of the oöcyte. The oöcyte might stop developing before or at the resting stage, or it might stop development after the initiation of protein/carbohydrate yolk deposition at Christophers's Stage II or III, or it might go on to form an egg. Competition between oöcytes developing in the same ovary was common, but once an oöcyte commenced protein/carbohydrate yolk formation it then appeared to be eligible for promotion to develop into an egg.In the ordinary laboratory colony, a proportion, 20–30 per cent of the females, were unable to develop the oöcyte beyond the resting stage whatever the conditions of larval culture, but this proportion was not represented in the population selected from the original colony through two generations of autogenous eggs.These results are discussed in relation to current theories about initiation and promotion of mosquito oöcytes after a blood meal and the hormonal control of oöcyte development.