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Updated: Jun 8, 2026

Whole Mount Dissection and Immunofluorescence of the Adult Mouse Cochlea
Published on: January 1, 2016
Dual contribution to amplification in the mammalian inner ear
Tobias Reichenbach1, A J Hudspeth
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, New York 10065-6399, USA.
Abstract:
The inner ear achieves a wide dynamic range of responsiveness by mechanically amplifying weak sounds. The enormous mechanical gain reported for the mammalian cochlea, which exceeds a factor of 4000, poses a challenge for theory. Here we show how such a large gain can result from an interaction between amplification by low-gain hair bundles and a pressure wave: hair bundles can amplify both their displacement per locally applied pressure and the pressure wave itself. A recently proposed ratchet mechanism, in which hair-bundle forces do not feed back on the pressure wave, delineates the two effects. Our analytical calculations with a WKB approximation agree with numerical solutions.
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