[Morphological behavior of the renal corpuscle of the garden dormouse during hibernation].

We studied 20 garden dormouses (Eliomys quercinus), 10 of which had hibernated. The renal tissue was fixed in Bouin's fluid, embedded in paraffin and sectioned at 7 microns; the sections were stained with azocarmin. These preparations were studied with an optical microscope (Leitz SM-Lux). Hibernation causes an increase in the corpuscular, glomerular and Bowman capsular areas. We thought that this statistically significant increase in the size of the corpuscular structures might be due to the glomerular blood stasis and larger flow of plasma ultrafiltrated towards the capsular space, because of an intense vasoconstriction of the efferent arteriole; this vasoconstriction is due to sympathetic stimulation and renin hypersecretion.