The sensory epithelium of the mammalian inner ear contains two types of mechanosensory cells:inner (IHC) and outer hair cells (OHC). They both transduce mechanical force generated by soundwaves into electrical signals. In ...

In animal models, prolonged exposure (2 h) to high-level noise causes an irreparable damage to the synapses between the inner hair cells and auditory nerve fibers within the cochlea. Nevertheless, this injury does not ...

Cochlear hair cells are inhibited by cholinergic efferent neurons. The acetylcholine (ACh) receptor of the hair cell is a ligand-gated cation channel through which calcium enters to activate potassium channels and hyperpolarize ...

The organ of Corti, the mammalian sensory epithelium of the inner ear, has two types of mechanoreceptor cells, inner hair cells (IHCs) and outer hair cells (OHCs). In this sensory epithelium, vibrations produced by sound ...

Somatic electromotility in cochlear outer hair cells, as the basis for cochlear amplification, is a mammalian novelty and it is largely dependent upon rapid cell length changes proposed to be mediated by the motor-protein ...

The auditory system processes time and intensity through separate brainstem pathways to derive spatial location as well as other salient features of sound. The independent coding of time and intensity begins in the cochlea, ...

In the inner ear, the activity of hair cells that transform sound into electrical signals is modulated by a descending efferent innervation from the brain. A major component of this feedback involves cholinergic inhibition ...

The cells in the organ of Corti do not exhibit spontaneous cell regeneration; hair cells that die after damage are not replaced. Supporting cells can be induced to transdifferentiate into hair cells, but that would ...

The afferent synapse between the inner hair cell (IHC) and the auditory nerve fiber provides an electrophysiologically accessible site for recording the postsynaptic activity of a single ribbon synapse. Ribbon synapses of ...