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Updated: Aug 19, 2025

Cochlear Surface Preparation in the Adult Mouse
Published on: November 6, 2019
Cubic and quadratic distortion products in vibrations of the mouse cochlear apex
1Caruso Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90033, USA jamesdew@usc.edu.
Abstract:
When the ear is stimulated by two tones presented at frequencies f1 and f2, nonlinearity in the cochlea's vibratory response leads to the generation of distortion products (DPs), with the cubic 2f1-f2 DP commonly viewed as the most prominent. While the quadratic f2-f1 DP is also evident in numerous physiological and perceptual studies, its presence in the cochlea's mechanical response has been less well documented. Here, examination of vibratory DPs within the mouse cochlea confirmed that f2-f1 was a significant and sometimes dominant component, whether DPs were measured near their generation site, or after having propagated from more basal locations.
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