Bohne B A, Bozzay D G, Harding G W
J Acoust Soc Am. 1986 Dec;80(6):1729-36. doi: 10.1121/1.394285.
Sizable intraspecies variations have been found in both the length of the organ of Corti (OC) and the amount of damage resulting from exposure to a particular ototraumatic agent. These variations have made it difficult to address certain research questions such as the susceptibility of the previously injured ear to further damage. If intra-animal correlation is high, the variability problem could be circumvented by using the two ears from a given animal for different aspects of the same study. Therefore, correlation coefficients were calculated for OC length and for percentage of missing inner (IHCs) and outer hair cells (OHCs) in a large sample of chinchillas which included controls and animals which had been exposed to noise or treated with ionizing radiation. The correlation coefficients were +0.96 for OC length, +0.93 for IHC loss, and +0.97 for OHC loss.
在柯替氏器（OC）的长度以及暴露于特定耳外伤因素所导致的损伤程度方面，均发现了显著的种内差异。这些差异使得难以解决某些研究问题，比如先前受伤的耳朵对进一步损伤的易感性。如果动物体内的相关性较高，那么通过在同一研究的不同方面使用给定动物的两只耳朵，就可以规避变异性问题。因此，在一大群包括对照组以及暴露于噪声或接受电离辐射治疗的动物的龙猫样本中，计算了OC长度以及内毛细胞（IHC）和外毛细胞（OHC）缺失百分比的相关系数。OC长度的相关系数为+0.96，IHC损失的相关系数为+0.93，OHC损失的相关系数为+0.97。
