In mammals, environmental sounds stimulate the auditory receptor, the cochlea, via vibrations of the stapes, the innermost of the middle ear ossicles. These vibrations produce displacement waves that travel on the elongated and spirally wound basilar membrane (BM). As they travel, waves grow in amplitude, reaching a maximum and then dying out. The location of maximum BM motion is a function of stimulus frequency, with high-frequency waves being localized to the “base” of the cochlea (near the stapes) and low-frequency waves approaching the “apex” of the cochlea. Thus each cochlear site has a characteristic frequency (CF), to which it responds maximally. BM vibrations produce motion of hair cell stereocilia, which gates stereociliar transduction channels leading to the generation of hair cell receptor potentials and the excitation of afferent auditory nerve fibers. At the base of the cochlea, BM motion exhibits a CF-specific and level-dependent compressive nonlinearity such that responses to low-level, near-CF stimuli are sensitive and sharply frequency-tuned and responses to intense stimuli are insensitive and poorly tuned. The high sensitivity and sharp-frequency tuning, as well as compression and other nonlinearities (two-tone suppression and intermodulation distortion), are highly labile, indicating the presence in normal cochleae of a positive feedback from the organ of Corti, the “cochlear amplifier.” This mechanism involves forces generated by the outer hair cells and controlled, directly or indirectly, by their transduction currents. At the apex of the cochlea, nonlinearities appear to be less prominent than at the base, perhaps implying that the cochlear amplifier plays a lesser role in determining apical mechanical responses to sound. Whether at the base or the apex, the properties of BM vibration adequately account for most frequency-specific properties of the responses to sound of auditory nerve fibers.

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Mechanics of the Mammalian Cochlea

Phantom auditory perception (tinnitus): mechanisms of generation and perception

Humans have over 70 potassium channel genes, but only some of these have been linked to disease. In this respect, the KCNQ family of potassium channels is exceptional: mutations in four out of five KCNQ genes underlie diseases including cardiac arrhythmias, deafness and epilepsy. These disorders illustrate the different physiological functions of KCNQ channels, and provide a model for the study of the 'safety margin' that separates normal from pathological levels of channel expression. In addition, several KCNQ isoforms can associate to form heteromeric channels that underlie the M-current, an important regulator of neuronal excitability.

https://www.leibniz-fmp.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Physiology_and_Pathology_of_Ion_Transport/documents/reviewKCNQ.pdf

Neuronal KCNQ potassium channels: physiology and role in disease.

Basilar-membrane responses to single tones were measured, using laser velocimetry, at a site of the chinchilla cochlea located 3.5 mm from its basal end. Responses to low-level ( 80 dB the largest responses are elicited by tones with frequency about 0.4–0.5 octave below CF. For stimulus frequencies well above CF, responses stop decreasing with increasing frequency: A plateau is reached. The compressive growth of responses to tones with frequency near CF is accompanied by intensity-dependent phase shifts. Death abolishes all nonlinearities, reduces sensitivity at CF by as much as 60–81 dB, and causes a relative phase lead at CF.

/pdf/basilar-membrane-responses-to-tones-at-the-base-of-the-4ht3urogkk.pdf

Basilar-membrane responses to tones at the base of the chinchilla cochlea

Experiments in hearing

Prestin-based outer hair cell motility is necessary for mammalian cochlear amplification

Cochlear microphonic and summating potential recordings were obtained from preparations where only either inner hair cells (first‐turn recording) or outer hair cells (fourth‐turn recording) could have contributed to the potentials. A comparison suggests that outer hair cells do produce the preponderance of receptor potentials.Subject Classification: [43]65.40, [43]65.42.

Production of cochlear potentials by inner and outer hair cells

The neural representation of sensory events depends upon neural synchrony. Auditory neuropathy, a disorder of stimulus-timing-related neural synchrony, provides a model for studying the role of synchrony in auditory perception. This article presents electrophysiological and behavioral data from a rare case of auditory neuropathy in a woman with normal hearing thresholds, making it possible to separate audibility from neuropathy. The experimental results, which encompass a wide range of auditory perceptual abilities and neurophysiologic responses to sound, provide new information linking neural synchrony with auditory perception. Findings illustrate that optimal eighth nerve and auditory brainstem synchrony do not appear to be essential for understanding speech in quiet listening situations. However, synchrony is critical for understanding speech in the presence of noise.

/pdf/consequences-of-neural-asynchrony-a-case-of-auditory-59d6tn7e8b.pdf

Consequences of neural asynchrony: a case of auditory neuropathy.

With a tone‐on‐tone masking procedure the compound action potential (AP), elicited by brief tone bursts of set frequency and intensity, was decreased by a constant fraction. The frequency–intensity pairs formed by the masker that yield this decrease generate the AP tuning curve. It is demonstrated that such tuning curves are very similar to both psychophysical tuning curves and single VIIIth‐nerve‐fiber tuning curves. Changes in the properties of these curves are described as functions of stimulus frequency and level, mode of masking (simultaneous and forward), and parameters of the masker.Subject Classification: [43]65.40, [43]65.42, [43]65.58.

Mary Ann Cheatham

Papers

Prestin-based outer hair cell motility is necessary for mammalian cochlear amplification

Production of cochlear potentials by inner and outer hair cells

Consequences of neural asynchrony: a case of auditory neuropathy.

Compound action potential (AP) tuning curves.

Positive endocochlear potential: mechanism of production by marginal cells of stria vascularis.