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Nature 428, 901-903 (29 April 2004) | doi:10.1038/428901a
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Hearing: Tightrope act
David P. Corey & Marcos Sotomayor
Abstract
A component of the 'tip link' that conveys tension to mechanically sensitive ion channels in the inner ear has been identified. The finding raises new questions about elastic elements in our hearing apparatus.
A snatch of music from far away or a slight turn of the head to find its source generates mechanical stimuli that are detected by hair cells of the inner ear. A bundle of finger-like stereocilia rises from the upper surface of each hair cell; stimuli that deflect these stereocilia by just a few nanometres can be reliably perceived.
- David P. Corey is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, 220 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
e-mail: Email: dcorey@hms.harvard.edu - Marcos Sotomayor is in the Department of Physics and the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 405 N Mathew, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
e-mail: Email: sotomayo@ks.uiuc.edu
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