Longitudinal Pattern of Basilar Membrane Vibration in the Sensitive Cochlea

In the normal mammalian ear, sound vibrates the eardrum, causing the tiny bones of the middle ear to vibrate, transferring the vibration to the inner ear fluids. The vibration propagates from the base of the cochlea to its apex along the cochlear partition. As essential as this concept is to the the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2002-12, Vol.99 (26), p.17101-17106
Main Author: Ren, Tianying
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Animals
Basilar Membrane - physiology
Biological Sciences
Cochlea
Cochlea - physiology
Ears & hearing
Geodetic position
Gerbillinae
Interferometers
Membranes
Neurology
Phase velocity
Sound pressure
Transfer functions
Traveling waves
Vibration
Waveforms
Wavelengths
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Summary:In the normal mammalian ear, sound vibrates the eardrum, causing the tiny bones of the middle ear to vibrate, transferring the vibration to the inner ear fluids. The vibration propagates from the base of the cochlea to its apex along the cochlear partition. As essential as this concept is to the theory of hearing, the waveform of cochlear partition vibration has yet to be measured in vivo. Here I report a "snapshot" (the instantaneous waveform of cochlear partition vibration) measured in the basal turn of the sensitive gerbil cochlea using a scanning laser interferometer. For 16-kHz tones, the phase delay is up to 6π radians over the observed cochlear length (
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.262663699