IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0298535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of size on middle-ear sound transmission in elephants, the largest terrestrial mammal

Author

Listed:
  • Caitlin E O’Connell-Rodwell
  • Jodie L Berezin
  • Anbuselvan Dharmarajan
  • Michael E Ravicz
  • Yihan Hu
  • Xiying Guan
  • Kevin N O’Connor
  • Sunil Puria

Abstract

Elephants have a unique auditory system that is larger than any other terrestrial mammal. To quantify the impact of larger middle ear (ME) structures, we measured 3D ossicular motion and ME sound transmission in cadaveric temporal bones from both African and Asian elephants in response to air-conducted (AC) tonal pressure stimuli presented in the ear canal (PEC). Results were compared to similar measurements in humans. Velocities of the umbo (VU) and stapes (VST) were measured using a 3D laser Doppler vibrometer in the 7–13,000 Hz frequency range, stapes velocity serving as a measure of energy entering the cochlea—a proxy for hearing sensitivity. Below the elephant ME resonance frequency of about 300 Hz, the magnitude of VU/PEC was an order of magnitude greater than in human, and the magnitude of VST/PEC was 5x greater. Phase of VST/PEC above ME resonance indicated that the group delay in elephant was approximately double that of human, which may be related to the unexpectedly high magnitudes at high frequencies. A boost in sound transmission across the incus long process and stapes near 9 kHz was also observed. We discuss factors that contribute to differences in sound transmission between these two large mammals.

Suggested Citation

  • Caitlin E O’Connell-Rodwell & Jodie L Berezin & Anbuselvan Dharmarajan & Michael E Ravicz & Yihan Hu & Xiying Guan & Kevin N O’Connor & Sunil Puria, 2024. "The impact of size on middle-ear sound transmission in elephants, the largest terrestrial mammal," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(4), pages 1-22, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0298535
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298535
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298535
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298535&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0298535?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
    ---><---

    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:plo:pone00:0298535. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.