Mechanical and electromotile characteristics of auditory outer hair cells

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Updated: Oct 20, 2026

Investigating Outer Hair Cell Motility with a Combination of External Alternating Electrical Field Stimulation and High-speed Image Analysis
09:35

Investigating Outer Hair Cell Motility with a Combination of External Alternating Electrical Field Stimulation and High-speed Image Analysis

Published on: July 18, 2011

A A Spector1, W E Brownell, A S Popel

  • 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. aspector@bme.jhu.edu

Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing
|July 9, 1999
PubMed

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Hair cells are the sensory receptors of the auditory system—they transduce mechanical sound waves into electrical energy that the nervous system can understand. Hair cells are located in the organ of Corti within the cochlea of the inner ear, between the basilar and tectorial membranes. The actual sensory receptors are called inner hair cells. The outer hair cells serve other functions, such as sound amplification in the cochlea, and are not discussed in detail here.
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The cochlea is a coiled structure in the inner ear that contains hair cells—the sensory receptors of the auditory system. Sound waves are transmitted to the cochlea by small bones attached to the eardrum called the ossicles, which vibrate the oval window that leads to the inner ear. This causes fluid in the chambers of the cochlea to move, vibrating the basilar membrane.
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Auditory pathways constitute the complex neural circuits responsible for transmitting and interpreting auditory information from the peripheral auditory system to the brain. Sound waves are initially captured by the outer ear, funneled through the ear canal, and reach the tympanic membrane (eardrum). These vibrations are transmitted via the middle ear's ossicles to the inner ear's cochlea.
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