IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v2y2011i1d10.1038_ncomms1226.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measurement of cochlear power gain in the sensitive gerbil ear

Author

Listed:
  • Tianying Ren

    (Oregon Hearing Research Center
    Xi'an Jiaotong University School of Medicine)

  • Wenxuan He

    (Oregon Hearing Research Center)

  • Peter G. Gillespie

    (Oregon Hearing Research Center
    Vollum Institute, Oregon Health and Science University)

Abstract

The extraordinary sensitivity of the mammalian ear is commonly attributed to the cochlear amplifier, a cellular process thought to locally boost responses of the cochlear partition to soft sounds. However, cochlear power gain has not been measured directly. Here we use a scanning laser interferometer to determine the volume displacement and volume velocity of the cochlear partition by measuring its transverse vibration along and across the partition. We show the transverse displacement at the peak-response location can be >1,000 times greater than the displacement of the stapes, whereas the volume displacement of an area centred at this location is approximately tenfold greater than that of the stapes. Using the volume velocity and cochlear-fluid impedance, we discover that power at the peak-response area is >100-fold greater than that at the stapes. These results demonstrate experimentally that the cochlea amplifies soft sounds, offering insight into the mechanism responsible for the cochlear sensitivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Tianying Ren & Wenxuan He & Peter G. Gillespie, 2011. "Measurement of cochlear power gain in the sensitive gerbil ear," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 2(1), pages 1-7, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:2:y:2011:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1226
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1226
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms1226
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms1226?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tianying Ren & Wenxuan He & Edward Porsov, 2011. "Localization of the Cochlear Amplifier in Living Sensitive Ears," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(5), pages 1-8, May.
    2. Arun Palghat Udayashankar & Manfred Kössl & Manuela Nowotny, 2012. "Tonotopically Arranged Traveling Waves in the Miniature Hearing Organ of Bushcrickets," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(2), pages 1-8, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:2:y:2011:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms1226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.