Tectorial membrane porosity controls spread of excitation and tuning in the cochlea
Name
SellonMoH2014.pdf
Size
366.91 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
00bfaecfb9ba58ae7d9c6fe3f59e2aeb
Author(s)
Sellon, Jonathan B.
Ghaffari, Roozbeh
Farrahi, Shirin
Richardson, Guy P.
Freeman, Dennis M
Date Issued
2015
Journal
AIP Conference Proceedings
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Citation
Sellon, Jonathan B. et al. "Tectorial membrane porosity controls spread of excitation and tuning in the cochlea." AIP Conference Proceedings 1703, 1 (2015): 080003 © 2015 AIP Publishing LLC
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Modifications of genes that encode proteins found exclusively in the tectorial membrane (TM) alter mechanical properties and produce a wide range of hearing deficits. However, the changes in TM physical properties responsible for these deficits remain unclear. In particular, the cochlear tuning of Tectb[superscript −/−] mice is significantly sharper than that of Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] mice, even though the stiffnesses of Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] and Tectb[superscript −/−] TMs are similarly reduced relative to wild-type TMs. Here we show that differences in TM wave properties that are governed by shear viscosity account for these differences in tuning. The shear viscosity of the TM results from the interaction of interstitial fluid with the porous structure of the TM’s macromolecular matrix. In basal regions of the cochlea, nanoscale pores of Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] TMs are significantly larger than those of Tectb[superscript −/−] TMs. The larger pores in Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] TMs gives rise to lower shear viscosity (by ∼70%), which in turn, reduces wave speed and increases wave decay constants relative to Tectb[superscript −/−] TM wave properties. These results demonstrate the importance of TM porosity in cochlear tuning and that TM porosity, not stiffness, underlies the striking differences in hearing between Tecta[superscript Y1870C/+] and Tectb[superscript −/−] mice.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research Laboratory of Electronics
Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4939394
