Brief Communication abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 746 - 748 (2008)
Published online: 30 May 2008 | doi:10.1038/nn.2129
Outer hair cell somatic, not hair bundle, motility is the basis of the cochlear amplifier
Marcia M Mellado Lagarde1,2, Markus Drexl1,2, Victoria A Lukashkina1, Andrei N Lukashkin1 & Ian J Russell1
Sensitivity, dynamic range and frequency tuning of the cochlea are attributed to amplification involving outer hair cell stereocilia and/or somatic motility. We measured acoustically and electrically elicited basilar membrane displacements from the cochleae of wild-type and Tecta
ENT/ENT mice, in which stereocilia are unable to contribute to amplification near threshold. Electrically elicited responses from TectaENT/ENT mice were markedly similar to acoustically and electrically elicited responses from wild-type mice. We conclude that somatic, and not stereocilia, motility is the basis of cochlear amplification.
- School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK.
- These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to: Ian J Russell1 e-mail: I.J.Russell@sussex.ac.uk
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