关键词:
Science
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
摘要:
THE cochlea in the inner ear of mammals is capable of detecting sounds whose frequencies vary over seven orders of magnitude - a feat whose mechanism is still not understood. It has however become clear that the extraction of frequency information in non-mammalian vertebrates often depends on inner ear structures somewhat different from those of mammals, and operating on rather different principles. Although the frequency range detectable by lower vertebrates is more restricted than the mammalian one, the hope is that the transduction mechanism by which the sensory cells convey frequency information to the auditory nerve will prove to be the same1. The paper by Lewis and Hudspeth in this issue of Nature2, describing the membrane properties of frequency-sensitive hair cells in the frog, may thus have general significance for understanding how lower vertebrates convey frequency information to the auditory *** mammals, the basis of frequency discrimination is believed to be the mechanical travelling wave set up in the inner ear by the sound wave and first described by von Bksy3. The wave travels along the basilar membrane on which the hair cells rest and the point in the membrane at which the wave reaches its peak amplitude depends on the frequency of the sound. This mechanically ensures that different acoustic frequencies stimulate distinct sets of cochlear hair cells. Improved experimental methods have shown that the basilar membrane tuning is sharper than can be accounted for by its passive mechanical properties alone4,5 and the emphasis has shifted to those properties of the hair cells and the structure of the cochlear partition that could be responsible. The details remain as enigmatic as ever but recent modelling attempts6 have suggested that energy has to be fed into the basilar membrane in the region of the envelope peak in order to account for the observed *** some species tuning can occur even in the absence of a travelling wave. Where the dividing