Abstract
Hair cells of the inner ear contain an active amplifier that allows them to detect extremely weak signals. As one of the manifestations of an active process, spontaneous oscillations arise in fluid immersed hair bundles of in vitro preparations of selected auditory and vestibular organs. We measure the phase-locking dynamics of oscillatory bundles exposed to low-amplitude sinusoidal signals, a transition that can be described by a saddle-node bifurcation on an invariant circle. The transition is characterized by the occurrence of phase slips, at a rate that is dependent on the amplitude and detuning of the applied drive. The resultant staircase structure in the phase of the oscillation can be described by the stochastic Adler equation, which reproduces the statistics of phase slip production.
- Received 6 November 2012
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.148103
© 2013 American Physical Society
Synopsis
The Hairs Rustling in Your Ears
Published 4 April 2013
Hairlike sensory cells in our ears may detect weak auditory signals through a synchronization process, according to new experiments.
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