2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Model of cochlea in auditory system
| Project/Area Number |
24654136
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
|
| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
|---|
| Research Field |
Biophysics/Chemical physics
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Yokohama National University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2012-04-01 – 2014-03-31
|
| Keywords | 確率共鳴 / 生物物理 / 聴覚 / 蝸牛管 / 有毛細胞 / 閾値応答 / ノイズ / 自励振動 |
|---|
| Research Abstract |
In the mammalian auditory system, the roles of the cochlea in the inner ear are the detection and the frequency decomposition of acoustic waves. The integral components of the cochlea are the basilar membrane stretched along the length of the cochlea duct, two types of sensory cells: outer hair cells and inner hair cells on the organ of Corti and the acoustic nerves synaptically-connecting with inner hair cells. In spite of much controversy over the functions and capabilities arising from von Bekesy's model of travelling waves since 1928, the frequency resolution and the detection sensitivity of the human cochlea remain to be clarified.
We revised these functions based on physiological structure of the components from a viewpoint of stochastic resonance and constructed a mimimal model of the cochlea for the mechanism of hearing. We demonstrated the validity of the model in experiments of electric circuit. The realization of the circuit model marks the beginning of artificial cochlea.
|
