TY - JOUR
T1 - Two-tone distortion in reticular lamina vibration of the living cochlea
AU - Ren, Tianying
AU - He, Wenxuan
N1 - Funding Information:
The data reported in this paper were presented at the faculty data club of the Oregon Hearing Research Center. We thank Alfred Nuttall and other colleagues at the Oregon Hearing Research Center for helpful discussion, David Kemp and John Brigande for valuable comments on the data and manuscript, Edward Porsov for engineering support. This study was funded by NIH grant R01 DC004554.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/12/1
Y1 - 2020/12/1
N2 - It has been demonstrated that isolated auditory sensory cells, outer hair cells, can generate distortion products at low frequencies. It remains unknown, however, whether or not motile outer hair cells are able to generate two-tone distortion at high frequencies in living cochleae under the mechanical loads caused by surounding tissues and fluids. By measuring sub-nanometer vibration directly from the apical ends of outer hair cells using a custom-built heterodyne low-coherence interferometer, here we show outer hair cell-generated two-tone distortion in reticular lamina motion in the living cochlea. Reticular-lamina distortion is significantly greater and occurs at a broader frequency range than that of the basilar membrane. Contrary to expectations, our results indicate that motile outer hair cells are capable of generating two-tone distortion in vivo not only at the locations tuned to primary tones but also at a broad region basal to these locations.
AB - It has been demonstrated that isolated auditory sensory cells, outer hair cells, can generate distortion products at low frequencies. It remains unknown, however, whether or not motile outer hair cells are able to generate two-tone distortion at high frequencies in living cochleae under the mechanical loads caused by surounding tissues and fluids. By measuring sub-nanometer vibration directly from the apical ends of outer hair cells using a custom-built heterodyne low-coherence interferometer, here we show outer hair cell-generated two-tone distortion in reticular lamina motion in the living cochlea. Reticular-lamina distortion is significantly greater and occurs at a broader frequency range than that of the basilar membrane. Contrary to expectations, our results indicate that motile outer hair cells are capable of generating two-tone distortion in vivo not only at the locations tuned to primary tones but also at a broad region basal to these locations.
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U2 - 10.1038/s42003-020-0762-2
DO - 10.1038/s42003-020-0762-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 31965040
AN - SCOPUS:85078132239
SN - 2399-3642
VL - 3
JO - Communications Biology
JF - Communications Biology
IS - 1
M1 - 35
ER -