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DY: Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 46: Poster
DY 46.58: Poster
Thursday, March 27, 2003, 15:30–18:00, P1
Spontaneous oscillations of auditory hair bundles — •Björn Nadrowski1, Pascal Martin2, and Frank Jülicher1 — 1Max Planck Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme, Nöthnitzerstr. 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany — 2Laboratoire Physico-Chimie Curie, Unité Mixte de Recherche 168, Institut Curie, 26 rue d’Ulm, F-75248 Paris Cedex 05, France
Hearing relies on active filtering to achieve exquisit sensitivity and sharp frequency selectivity. In a quiet environment, the ears of many vertebrates become unstable and emit one to several tones. These spontaneous otoacoustic emissions, the most striking manifestation of the inner ear’s active process, must result from self-sustained mechanical oscillations of aural constituents. It has recently been shown that the mechanosensitive hair bundles of auditory cells of the frog ear have the ability to oscillate spontaneously. This spontaneous oscillation leads to frequency selectivity and nonlinearity in the bundles mechanical response. We discuss the physical principles behind detection based on critical oscillators as well as specific mechanisms that can lead to oscillations and active behaviors in auditory hair bundles.