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Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea
Published on: May 10, 2019
Influence of medial olivocochlear efferents on the sharpness of cochlear tuning estimates in children
Srikanta K Mishra1, Zoë Dinger1
1Department of Special Education/Communication Disorders, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003-8001, USA.
Abstract:
The present study objectively quantified the efferent-induced changes in the sharpness of cochlear tuning estimates and compared these alterations in cochlear tuning between adults and children. Click evoked otoacoustic emissions with and without contralateral broadband noise were recorded from 15 young adults and 14 children aged between 5 and 10 yrs. Time-frequency distributions of click evoked otoacoustic emissions were obtained via the S-transform, and the otoacoustic emission latencies were used to estimate the sharpness of cochlear tuning. Contralateral acoustic stimulation caused a significant reduction in the sharpness of cochlear tuning estimates in the low to mid frequency region, but had no effect in the higher frequencies (3175 and 4000 Hz). The magnitude of efferent-induced changes in cochlear tuning estimates was similar between adults and children. The current evidence suggests that the stimulation of the medial olivocochlear efferent neurons causes similar alterations in cochlear frequency selectivity in adults and children.
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