A mechanoelectrical mechanism for detection of sound envelopes in the hearing organ

Alfred L. Nuttall (), Anthony J. Ricci, George Burwood, James M. Harte, Stefan Stenfelt, Per Cayé-Thomasen, Tianying Ren, Sripriya Ramamoorthy, Yuan Zhang, Teresa Wilson, Thomas Lunner, Brian C. J. Moore and Anders Fridberger ()
Additional contact information
Alfred L. Nuttall: Oregon Health & Science University
Anthony J. Ricci: Stanford University School of Medicine
George Burwood: Oregon Health & Science University
James M. Harte: Technical University of Denmark
Stefan Stenfelt: Linköping University
Per Cayé-Thomasen: Copenhagen University Hospital
Tianying Ren: Oregon Health & Science University
Sripriya Ramamoorthy: Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Yuan Zhang: Oregon Health & Science University
Teresa Wilson: Oregon Health & Science University
Thomas Lunner: Eriksholm Research Centre
Brian C. J. Moore: University of Cambridge
Anders Fridberger: Oregon Health & Science University

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract To understand speech, the slowly varying outline, or envelope, of the acoustic stimulus is used to distinguish words. A small amount of information about the envelope is sufficient for speech recognition, but the mechanism used by the auditory system to extract the envelope is not known. Several different theories have been proposed, including envelope detection by auditory nerve dendrites as well as various mechanisms involving the sensory hair cells. We used recordings from human and animal inner ears to show that the dominant mechanism for envelope detection is distortion introduced by mechanoelectrical transduction channels. This electrical distortion, which is not apparent in the sound-evoked vibrations of the basilar membrane, tracks the envelope, excites the auditory nerve, and transmits information about the shape of the envelope to the brain.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06725-w

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