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Evolving critical oscillators for hearing

Nature Reviews Physics volume 6, pages 210–211 (2024)Cite this article

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Vertebrate hearing uses mechanosensory cells operating near an oscillatory instability. Physics reveals how this mechanism might have evolved from ‘chance and necessity’.

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Fig. 1: Hair-cell structure and operation.

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Acknowledgements

A.J.H. is an Investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute. P.M. acknowledges funding from Fondation Pour l’Audition (FPA RD-2020-7) and Labex Cell(n)Scale (ANR-11-LABX-0038 and ANR-10-IDEX-001-02).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Laboratory of Sensory Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, New York, NY, USA

    A. J. Hudspeth

  2. Laboratoire Physico-Chimie Curie, Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR168, Paris, France

    Pascal Martin

  3. Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

    Pascal Martin

Authors
  1. A. J. Hudspeth
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  2. Pascal Martin
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Correspondence to A. J. Hudspeth or Pascal Martin.

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Hudspeth, A.J., Martin, P. Evolving critical oscillators for hearing. Nat Rev Phys 6, 210–211 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-023-00672-2

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