[Dependence of carotid body structure on age in male rats (author's transl)]

The ultrastructure of the carotid corpuscle has been studied on males Wistar rats, from their birth to eighteen months. In the course of the ageing of the animal, th cytology of the constitutive elements is altered. The size of the main cells is maximal at eleven months. If the Golgi apparatus and the mitochondria do not seem very altered, the granular vesicles, the number of the ribosomes, especially these in contact with the membranes of the granular endoplasmic reticulum diminish. The vacuolisation, increased after the first month, the cells in course of degeneration, and the cellular phantoms observed from the fifth month, reveal the very slow and gradual involution of the corpuscle. The lysosomes appear infrequent as early as their birth and their slow growth in size more significant than the growth in number conjunctively with an important fibrose characterizes the senescent corpuscle. All the corpuscles seem affected in the same way, since the amplitude of alterations do not vary much from one animal to another. So in the corpuscles of every rat over one year, the clear cells prevail, not very altered by the ageing process.