Hearing and Deafness

1. Anatomy & physiology

Chris Darwin
Web site for lectures, lecture notes and filtering lab:
http://www.lifesci.susx.ac.uk/home/Chris_Darwin/
safari

Outer, middle & inner ear

Capture;

Amplify mid-freqs

Vertical direction coding

Protection

Frequency analysis

Impedance match

Transduction

Middle ear structure

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Conductive hearing loss

Sounds dont get into cochlea

Middle ear problems

Helped by surgery and by amplification

Cochlea

Cochlea cross-section

Travelling wave on basilar

membrane sorts sounds by frequency
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high frequencies

low frequencies

amplitude of vibration

0
base

apex

dis tance along basilar membrane

Reponse of basilar membrane

to sine waves
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Each point on the membrane responds best to a different frequency:

high freq at base, low at apex.
amadeus

praat

Organ of Corti
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Inner
hair cell
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Hair Cell
Stereocilia

Auditory nerve innervation

IHC (1)

OHC (2)

radial afferent (blue)

spiral afferent (green)

lateral efferent (pink)

medial efferent (red)

Auditory nerve
rate-intensity functions
100 saturation
many
80
spikes / second
60
few
high spontaneous rate
40
20
low spontaneous rate
90
30
60
log amplitude (dB SPL)

Phase Locking of Inner Hair Cells

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Auditory nerve connected to inner hair cell tends to fire

at the same phase of the stimulating waveform.

Phase-locking
1
0.5

pressure0 0
- 0.5

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

-1

Response to Low Frequency tones

Inter-spike Intervals
2 periods
1 period
voltage

nerve spike

time (t)

Response to High Frequency tones > 5kHz

Random intervals
voltage
time (t)

Inner
vs
Outer
Hair Cells

Inner vs Outer Hair Cells

Inner Hair Cells

Outer Hair Cells

Sensory

Motor

Afferent nerves

Efferent nerves

Single row

c.3 rows

OHC movement

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Passive
No OHC movement

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Active
With OHC movement

OHC activity
OHCs are relatively more active for quiet sounds than for
loud sounds.
They only amplify sounds that have the characteristic
frequency of their place.
Increases sensitivity (lowers thresholds)
Increases selectivity (reduces bandwidth of auditory filter)

Gives ear a logarithmic (non-linear) amplitude response

Produce Oto-acoustic emissions

Auditory tuning curves

Normal bandwidth

Inner hair-cell damage

100
Abnormal
Threshold

80

Healthy ear

log amplitude (dB SPL)

60

Normal
bandwidth
40

20

Normal

Characteristic

Threshold

Frequency

log frequency

Outer-hair cell damage

Abnormal bandwidth
100

Abnormal
Threshold

80
log amplitude (dB SPL)
60
40
20

Normal
Threshold

Normal
bandwidth
Characteristic
Frequency
log frequency

Conductive vs Sensori-neural deafness

Mostly a combination of
OHC and IHC damage
Con d uctive

Sens ori-neur al

Sens ori-neur al

Origin

Midd le-ear

Cochlea (IHCs)

Cochlea (OH Cs)

Thr es ho lds

Raised

Raised

Raised

Filter ban d wid ths

N ormal

N ormal

Increased

Lou d ness gr ow th

N ormal

N ormal

Increased (Recruitm ent

Becomes linear, so
No combination tones
Or two-tone suppression

Normal vs Impaired Dynamic Range

Normal auditory non-linearities

Normal loudness growth (follows Webers Law)

Combination tones
Two-tone suppression
Oto-acoustic emissions