Our senses are very unique. They come from the energies contained in the information about the world. An accessory structure modifies the energy and a receptor transduces the energy into a neural response. The sensory nerves transfer the coded activity to the central nervous system, while the thalamus processes and then relays the neural responses. Lastly, the cerebral cortex receives input and produces the sensation and perception from the brain.
Energy in the auditory system contains information about the world. This energy has a stimulus which comes from sound waves like ripples on a pond. The type of energy that this is, is mechanical energy. The vibrations cause changes in pressure of the medium and speed is able to change as the function of medium, while it can also stimulate mechanoreceptors on occasion. There are many different components of sound waves. The frequency is the number of cycles of sound waves completed per second. The wavelength is the distance between the same points on two successive waves. The amplitude is the height of the wave and the complexity is the interaction of many different waves. The phase is the part of the cycle that the wave is processing through in any given moment.
The accessory structures of the auditory system include the pinna, the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. All of these structures modify energy, and the outer, middle, and inner ears are able to act as a receptor site by transducing energy into a neural response. Transduction is the process of converting one form of energy into another. The pinna is the external fleshy covering on each side of one’s head and its purpose is to act as a funnel and provide minor amplification. From the outer ear, the external auditory ...
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...as the information ultimately reaches the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. Within the primary auditory cortex each cell responds best to one tone and cells preferring a specific tone cluster together. The secondary auditory cortex surrounds the primary auditory cortex. Unlike the primary, within the secondary auditory cortex each cell responds to a complex combination of sounds. There are two main types of hearing loss, conduction hearing loss, or middle-ear deafness, and nerve loss, or inner-ear deafness. Some causes of conduction hearing loss include a punctured eardrum, earwax buildup, or Otosclerosis, abnormal bone growth in the middle ear. Some causes of nerve loss are Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, Meniere’s disease, fluid buildup in the inner ear, or noise-induced hearing loss, all of which often produce Tinnitus, ringing in the ears.
Moore, Brian C.J. (2007). Cochlear Hearing Loss: Physiological, Psychological and Technical Issues. England: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Hearing allows us to take in noises from the surrounding environment and gives us a sense of where things are in relation to us. All those little folds on the outside of the ear, called the tonotopic organization, make it so sound waves in the air are directed to the ear canal, where they can be further processed. Once in the ear, the sound waves vibrate the ear drum, which tell the ear exactly what frequency it is sensing. The vibration of the ear drum is not quite enough to send a signal to the brain, so it needs to be amplified, which is where the three tiny bones in the ear come into play. The malleus or hammer, incus or anvil, and stapes or stirrup amplify this sound and send it to the cochlea. The cochlea conducts the sound signal through a fluid with a higher inertia than air, so this is why the signal from the ear drum needs to be amplified. It is much harder to move the fluid than it is to move the air. The cochlea basically takes these physical vibrations and turns them into electrical impulses that can be sent to the brain. This is...
Schreiber, B. E., Agrup, C., Haskard, D. O., & Luxon, L. M. (2010). Sudden sensorineural hearing loss. The Lancet, 375(9721), 1203-1211.
Let’s say that there is a mechanical sense. If someone touched your hand, your somatosensory system will detect various stimuli by your skin’s sensory receptors. The sensory information is then conveyed to the central nervous system by afferent neurons. The neuron’s dendrites will pass that information to the cell body, and on to its axon. From there it is passed onto the spinal cord or the brainstem. The neuron's ascending axons will cross to the opposite side either in the spinal cord or in the brainstem. The axons then terminates in the thalamus, and on into the Brodmann Area of the parietal lobe of the brain to process.
conduction deafness, there is interruption of the sound vibrations in their passage from the outer world to the nerve cells
serves as a channel for the sound to go into. The sound that you hear travels in vibrations. Those vibrations make the eardrum start to vibrate. When the eardrum starts to vibrate it makes three small bones bump into each other and a signal is sent to the inner ear. The signal is then sent to the cochlea, which is the Greek word for snail. In the cochlea there is a fluid, and from all the vibrations it pushes the fluid through the coil. This then activates the receptor cells or the hair cells to send a signal to the brain.
Hearing serves a very important function in our lives. Much of the time, it is taken for granted. We tend not to appreciate it, until it starts to fail. There are many disorders that can cause a difficulty in hearing and hearing loss. One such disorder is otosclerosis. This disorder deserves a significant amount of research. Not only because we are dependent on our sense of hearing, but because its effects are far reaching. So much so, that it is hard to comprehend how we could ever live without it. It has even been said that Beethoven had otosclerosis. Toward the end of his career, he could not even hear his own music (Goldstein, 1999). Its effects are devastating and are well worth studying.
According to Chapman et al., (2000), the loss of hearing appears to be a chronic issue through...
...the auditory nerve to the brain. The sound has to travel through auditory nerves in order to reach the brain.
The ear houses some of the most sensitive organs in the body. The physics of sound is well understood, while the mechanics of how the inner ear translates sound waves into neurotransmitters that then communicate to the brain is still incomplete. Because the vestibular labyrinth and the auditory structure are formed very early in the development of the fetus and the fluid pressure contained within both of them is mutually dependant, a disorder in one of the two reciprocating structures affects the (2).
...n the treatment process because this is the primary way to get undistorted sound waves directly to the inner-ear. The problem for patients with this disorder tends to be malformations of the external and middle ear. By bypassing those two areas a sound can be successfully transmitted directly into the inner ear via a bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA). The BAHA consists of a sound processor which takes in sound waves and transmits them to the external abutment. The vibrations then go through this abutment and into the titanium implant which works through direct bone conduction, via the skull bone which is integrated within and stimulates the nerve fibers of the inner ear. The malformations of the external and middle ear can be treated through reconstructive surgery. Success of this varies depending on how severe different aspects of the individual’s anomalies are.
Along with vision, hearing is one of the most important senses that humans have. We use it to communicate, learn, and stay aware of our environment. In fact, hearing is the only sense that never stops receiving sensory input. While all of our other senses become drastically less sensitive when we are sleeping, our brain still processes auditory information to awaken us the second something is wrong. Although this may have been more practically used before people slept safely in homes, it’s still useful for hearing a fire alarm or our alarm clock in the morning. We are able to hear by processing sound waves. This energy travels through the delicate structures in our ears to be transformed into neural activity so that we can perceive the sensory information we receive (Myers, 2010).
One sub-system under the sensory system is the visual system; the main sense organs of this are the eyes. The eye is the sensory organ that allows us to detect light from external stimuli. When a light ray is detected, the eye converts these rays into electrical signals that can be sent to the brain in order to process the information and giv...
The ear is looked upon as a miniature receiver, amplifier and signal-processing system. The structure of the outer ear catching sound waves as they move into the external auditory canal. The sound waves then hit the eardrum and the pressure of the air causes the drum to vibrate back and forth. When the eardrum vibrates its neighbour the malleus then vibrates too. The vibrations are then transmitted from the malleus to the incus and then to the stapes. Together the three bones increase the pressure which in turn pushes the membrane of the oval window in and out. This movement sets up fluid pressure waves in the perilymph of the cochlea. The bulging of the oval window then pushes on the perilymph of the scala vestibuli. From here the pressure waves are transmitted from the scala vestibuli to the scala tympani and then eventually finds its way to the round window. This causes the round window to bulge outward into the middle ear. The scala vestibuli and scala tympani walls are now deformed with the pressure waves and the vestibular membrane is also pushed back and forth creating pressure waves in the endolymph inside the cochlear duct. These waves then causes the membrane to vibrate, which in turn cause the hairs cells of the spiral organ to move against the tectorial membrane. The bending of the stereo cilia produces receptor potentials that in the end lead to the generation of nerve impulses.
Speaking of how the human ear receives music, sound is produced by vibrations that transmits energy into sound waves, a form of energy in which human ears can respond to and hear. Specifically, there are two different types of sound waves. The more common of the two are the transversal waves, which ...