Reverse transduction measured in the living cochlea by low-coherence heterodyne interferometry

Tianying Ren (), Wenxuan He and Peter G. Barr-Gillespie
Additional contact information
Tianying Ren: Oregon Hearing Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University
Wenxuan He: Oregon Hearing Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University
Peter G. Barr-Gillespie: Oregon Hearing Research Center, Oregon Health & Science University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract It is generally believed that the remarkable sensitivity and frequency selectivity of mammalian hearing depend on outer hair cell-generated force, which amplifies sound-induced vibrations inside the cochlea. This ‘reverse transduction’ force production has never been demonstrated experimentally, however, in the living ear. Here by directly measuring microstructure vibrations inside the cochlear partition using a custom-built interferometer, we demonstrate that electrical stimulation can evoke both fast broadband and slow sharply tuned responses of the reticular lamina, but only a slow tuned response of the basilar membrane. Our results indicate that outer hair cells can generate sufficient force to drive the reticular lamina over all audible frequencies in living cochleae. Contrary to expectations, the cellular force causes a travelling wave rather than an immediate local vibration of the basilar membrane; this travelling wave vibrates in phase with the reticular lamina at the best frequency, and results in maximal vibration at the apical ends of outer hair cells.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10282 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms10282

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10282

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().