Figure 1. Structure of the rabbit cranial base cartilage and force waveforms delivered to the rabbit skull. (A) Schematic diagram of the rabbit cranial base cartilage (CBC) or the spheno-occipital synchondrosis. The horizontal arrow indicates 2-Newton tensile forces applied to the maxillary incisors. The CBC, schematically represented as a rectangle, is located between the sphenoid and occipital bones. (B,C) Traces of exogenous forces with the same peak magnitude of 2 Newtons but with two different waveforms: static force (B) and cyclic force (C). The static force failed to induce any substantial oscillation in force magnitude over the representative 10-second time course (B). In contrast, the cyclic force of the same peak magnitude oscillated at 1 cycle per sec, totaling 10 cycles in the representative 10-second time course (C).