Auditory primary afferents in the starling: correlation of function and morphology

Despite the independent evolution of birds and mammals, a number of structural similarities of their hearing organs have developed in parallel. By tracing the peripheral origin of functionally-characterized primary neurons, the present study demonstrates functional similarities between the respective hair cell populations of the hearing organs of birds and mammals. The space devoted to one octave on the starling's basilar papilla is not constant over the whole length; rather it increases from the apical low- to the basal high-frequency end. The finding that (with the exception of a specialized area near the apical end) only tall hair cells situated on the neural limbus receive active afferent innervation is a functional parallel to the mammalian inner hair cells. The thresholds of afferents increase with distance of the related hair cells from the neural side of the papilla and cover a range of more than 50 dB within the area of tall hair cells.