Control of a hair bundle's mechanosensory function by its mechanical load

Abstract

Hair cells, the sensory receptors of the internal ear, subserve different functions in various receptor organs: they detect oscillatory stimuli in the auditory system, but transduce constant and step stimuli in the vestibular and lateral-line systems. We show that a hair cell's function can be controlled experimentally by adjusting its mechanical load. By making bundles from a single organ operate as any of four distinct types of signal detector, we demonstrate that altering only a few key parameters can fundamentally change a sensory cell's role. The motions of a single hair bundle can resemble those of a bundle from the amphibian vestibular system, the reptilian auditory system, or the mammalian auditory system, demonstrating an essential similarity of bundles across species and receptor organs.

References in corpus (2)

• Essential nonlinearities in hearing
• Auditory Sensitivity Provided by Self-tuned Critical Oscillations of Hair Cells

Cited by in corpus (6)

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• Frequency locking in auditory hair cells: Distinguishing between additive and parametric forcing
• Active energy harvesting and work transduction by hair-cell bundles in bullfrog's inner ear