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The Cochlea

The Cochlea

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.

Auditory Pathway

Auditory Pathway

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.
When viewed cross-sectionally, the cochlea reveals the scala vestibuli and scala tympani flanking the...

Hearing

Hearing

When we hear a sound, our nervous system is detecting sound waves—pressure waves of mechanical energy traveling through a medium. The frequency of the wave is perceived as pitch, while the amplitude is perceived as loudness.

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.

Hair Cells

Hair Cells

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.

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

Perceiving Loudness, Pitch, and Location

The human brain perceives pitch through two primary mechanisms reflected in place theory and frequency theory. Each mechanism describes how sound waves are interpreted as specific pitches by the brain, offering insights into the intricate processes of auditory perception.
Place theory, or place coding, suggests that different pitches are heard because various sound waves activate specific locations along the cochlea's basilar membrane. The brain determines the pitch of a sound by identifying...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 22, 2026

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI

Functional Imaging of Auditory Cortex in Adult Cats using High-field fMRI

Published on: February 19, 2014

Differential representation of auditory categories between cell classes in primate auditory cortex.

Joji Tsunada¹, Jung H Lee, Yale E Cohen

¹Department of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3400 Spruce-5 Ravdin, Philadelphia, PA, USA. tsunada@mail.med.upenn.edu

The Journal of Physiology

|May 10, 2012

Summary

In the auditory cortex, distinct neuron types play different roles in processing sounds. Interneurons show greater selectivity for auditory categories than pyramidal neurons, revealing key neural computations.

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Stereotactically-guided Ablation of the Rat Auditory Cortex, and Localization of the Lesion in the Brain

Stereotactically-guided Ablation of the Rat Auditory Cortex, and Localization of the Lesion in the Brain

Published on: October 11, 2017

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Auditory Neuroscience
Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

Understanding neural mechanisms of cognition requires knowledge of neural representation transformations across scales.
Neural transformations within local cortical microcircuits are poorly understood.
The specific roles of pyramidal neurons and interneurons in auditory behavior and cognition are largely unknown.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the differential roles of pyramidal neurons and interneurons in the auditory cortex during auditory categorization.
To test the hypothesis that these two main neuronal cell classes exhibit distinct functional properties in auditory processing.

Main Methods:

Recorded single-unit activity from the auditory cortex of rhesus monkeys during a speech sound categorization task.
Classified neurons as putative interneurons (narrow-spiking) or putative pyramidal neurons (broad-spiking) based on spike-waveform shape.

Main Results:

Putative interneurons and pyramidal neurons in the auditory cortex differentially encode category information.
Interneurons demonstrated significantly higher selectivity for auditory categories compared to pyramidal neurons.

Conclusions:

The differential coding properties of interneurons and pyramidal neurons are crucial for auditory categorization within the auditory cortex.
These findings highlight the importance of cell-type-specific computations in microcircuitry for auditory perception.