A model of cochlear mechanics with outer hair cell motility

The outer hair cell (OHC) is known to have the ability to change its length in response to voltage changes across its membrane. The apparent function of this OHC motility is to enhance the tuning of the basilar membrane. The model presented in this paper represents the displacement-to-voltage and vo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 94; no. 1; p. 137
Main Author Neely, S T
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.1993
Subjects
Acoustic Stimulation
Animals
Auditory Perception - physiology
Auditory Threshold
Basilar Membrane - physiology
Cats
Cell Movement - physiology
Cochlea - physiology
Ear, Middle - physiology
Hair Cells, Auditory - physiology
Models, Anatomic
Neural Pathways
Transducers
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Summary:The outer hair cell (OHC) is known to have the ability to change its length in response to voltage changes across its membrane. The apparent function of this OHC motility is to enhance the tuning of the basilar membrane. The model presented in this paper represents the displacement-to-voltage and voltage-to-displacement transducers of the OHC explicitly, each as low-pass filter functions. The model results show that this OHC representation is sufficient to provide a model of cochlear mechanics with mechanical tuning at the inner hair cell which is comparable to the threshold tuning curves observed in single auditory nerve fibers. The enhancement of tuning provided by OHC motility can be interpreted as the combined action of a cochlear amplifier and a second filter. This model demonstrates that realistic cochlear tuning does not require intrinsic resonance in any cochlear structure other than the basilar membrane.
ISSN:0001-4966
DOI:10.1121/1.407091