Mechanisms of excitation and amplification in the mammalian cochlea

Abstract

Mechanisms of cochlea excitation and amplification were investigated experimentally across a range of mammalian species. Distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) are used to clinically assess hearing. DPOAEs recorded from the ears of human subjects in the presence of a low frequency, high level tone were compared with similar recordings made from guinea pigs. Both guinea pig and human data were found to originate from a common cochlear nonlinearity; the Boltzmann model of DPOAE generation at the output of a spatially localised single-saturating non-linearity. Accordingly, the guinea pig cochlea can be used as a human model system for the study of DPOAE generation.

Date of Award	2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Brighton