Related papers: Auditory Sensitivity Provided by Self-tuned Critic…
The hair cells of the vertebrate inner ear convert mechanical stimuli to electrical signals. Two adaptation mechanisms are known to modify the ionic current flowing through the transduction channels of the hair bundles: a rapid process…
Hair cells, the sensory receptors of the internal ear, subserve different functions in various receptor organs: they detect oscillatory stimuli in the auditory system, but transduce constant and step stimuli in the vestibular and…
Hair cells of the auditory and vestibular systems display astonishing sensitivity, frequency selectivity, and temporal resolution to external signals. These specialized cells utilize an internal active amplifier to achieve highly sensitive…
Hair cells of the auditory and vestibular systems are capable of detecting sounds that induce sub-nanometer vibrations of the hair bundle, below the stochastic noise levels of the surrounding fluid. Hair bundles of certain species are also…
Sensory hair cells in auditory and vestibular organs rely on active mechanisms to achieve high sensitivity and frequency selectivity. Recent experimental studies have documented self-sustained oscillations in hair cells of lower vertebrates…
A mathematical model describing the coupling between two independent amplification mechanisms in auditory hair cells is proposed and analyzed. Hair cells are cells in the inner ear responsible for translating sound-induced mechanical…
Most sounds of interest consist of complex, time-dependent admixtures of tones of diverse frequencies and variable amplitudes. To detect and process these signals, the ear employs a highly nonlinear, adaptive, real-time spectral analyzer:…
This work reviews the human auditory system, elucidating some of the specialized mechanisms and non-linear pathways along the chain of events between physical sound and its perception. Customary relationships between frequency, time, and…
Sound produces surface waves along the cochlea's basilar membrane. To achieve the ear's astonishing frequency resolution and sensitivity to faint sounds, dissipation in the cochlea must be canceled via active processes in hair cells,…
Direct gating of mechanoelectrical-transduction channels by mechanical force is a basic feature of hair cells that assures fast transduction and underpins the mechanical amplification of acoustic inputs. But the associated nonlinearity -…
Hair bundles are biological oscillators that actively transduce mechanical stimuli into electrical signals in the auditory, vestibular, and lateral-line systems of vertebrates. A bundle's function can be explained in part by its operation…
Some biological systems operate at the critical point between stability and instability and this requires a fine-tuning of parameters. We bring together two examples from the literature that illustrate this: neural integration in the…
We propose amplitude death phenomenon as an underlying mechanism of auditory transduction. When non-identical auditory hair bundles are elastically coupled, their spontaneous oscillations can be quenched to form an amplitude death state. We…
Experimental records of active bundle motility are used to demonstrate the presence of a low-dimensional chaotic attractor in hair cell dynamics. Dimensionality tests from dynamic systems theory are applied to estimate the number of…
Hair cells conduct auditory transduction in vertebrates. In lower vertebrates such as frogs and turtles, due to the active mechanism in hair cells, hair bundles(stereocilia) can be spontaneously oscillating or quiescent. Recently, the…
We develop a framework for the general interpretation of the stochastic dynamical system near a limit cycle. Such quasi-periodic dynamics are commonly found in a variety of nonequilibrium systems, including the spontaneous oscillations of…
Hair cells actively drive oscillations of their mechanosensitive organelles--the hair bundles that enable hearing and balance sensing in vertebrates. Why and how some hair cells expend energy by sustaining this oscillatory motion in order…
In response to a sound stimulus, the inner ear emits sounds called otoacoustic emissions. While the exact mechanism for the production of otoacoustic emissions is not known, active motion of individual hair cells is thought to play a role.…
The sensitivity and frequency selectivity of hearing result from tuned amplification by an active process in the mechanoreceptive hair cells. In most vertebrates the active process stems from the active motility of hair bundles. The…
The detection of sound begins when energy derived from acoustic stimuli deflects the hair bundles atop hair cells. As hair bundles move, the viscous friction between stereocilia and the surrounding liquid poses a fundamental challenge to…