Olson Elizabeth S, Strimbu C Elliott
Department of Otolaryngolgy Head and Neck Surgery, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 630 W 168th St, New York, NY 10032.
Department Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, 351 Engineering Terrace, 1210 Amsterdam Avenue,New York, NY 10027.
Curr Opin Physiol. 2020 Dec;18:56-62. doi: 10.1016/j.cophys.2020.08.022. Epub 2020 Sep 5.
The cochlea is a complex biological machine that transduces sound-induced mechanical vibrations to neural signals. Hair cells within the sensory tissue of the cochlea transduce vibrations into electrical signals, and exert electromechanical feedback that enhances the passive frequency separation provided by the cochlea's traveling wave mechanics; this enhancement is termed cochlear amplification. The vibration of the sensory tissue has been studied with many techniques, and the current state of the art is optical coherence tomography (OCT). The OCT technique allows for motion of intra-organ structures to be measured at many layers within the sensory tissue, at several angles and in previously under-explored species. OCT-based observations are already impacting our understanding of hair cell excitation and cochlear amplification.
耳蜗是一个复杂的生物机器，它将声音引起的机械振动转化为神经信号。耳蜗感觉组织内的毛细胞将振动转化为电信号，并施加机电反馈，增强耳蜗行波机制提供的被动频率分离；这种增强被称为耳蜗放大。人们已经用多种技术研究了感觉组织的振动，目前的技术水平是光学相干断层扫描（OCT）。OCT技术能够在感觉组织内的多个层面、几个角度以及以前未充分研究的物种中测量器官内结构的运动。基于OCT的观察已经影响了我们对毛细胞兴奋和耳蜗放大的理解。
