Frequency tuning of basilar membrane and auditory nerve fibers in the same cochleae

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Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea
09:54

Morphological and Functional Evaluation of Ribbon Synapses at Specific Frequency Regions of the Mouse Cochlea

Published on: May 10, 2019

S S Narayan1, A N Temchin, A Recio

  • 1The Hugh Knowles Center, Audiology and Hearing Sciences Program, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Institute for Neuroscience, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208-3550, USA.

Science (New York, N.Y.)
|December 4, 1998
PubMed

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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.
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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.
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