The origin of tuning in turtle cochlear hair cells

Intracellular recordings were made from single hair cells in an in vitro preparation of the cochlea of the turtle. The response of each hair cell to sound stimuli was sharply tuned with a characteristic frequency which was related to the position of the cell along the basilar membrane. When small current steps were injected through the recording electrode, the hair cell potential exhibited damped oscillations at the cell's characteristic frequency. We suggest that the property of the hair cells which is responsible for this oscillatory behaviour could make a major contribution to their acoustic tuning.