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An ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In mammals, the ear is usually described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear consists of the pinna and the ear canal.
The inner ear consists of the cochlea and several non-auditory structures. The cochlea has three fluid-filled sections (i.e. the scala media, scala tympani and scala vestibuli), and supports a fluid wave driven by pressure across the basilar membrane separating two of the sections.
The primary function of the middle ear is to efficiently transfer acoustic energy from compression waves in air to fluid–membrane waves within the cochlea .
The cochlea is a portion of the inner ear that looks like a snail shell ( cochlea is Greek for snail). [4] The cochlea receives sound in the form of vibrations, which cause the stereocilia to move. The stereocilia then convert these vibrations into nerve impulses which are taken up to the brain to be interpreted.
The inner ear ( internal ear, auris interna) is the innermost part of the vertebrate ear. In vertebrates, the inner ear is mainly responsible for sound detection and balance. [1] In mammals, it consists of the bony labyrinth, a hollow cavity in the temporal bone of the skull with a system of passages comprising two main functional parts: [2]
Vestibular system. The vestibular system, in vertebrates, is a sensory system that creates the sense of balance and spatial orientation for the purpose of coordinating movement with balance. Together with the cochlea, a part of the auditory system, it constitutes the labyrinth of the inner ear in most mammals .
Hearing mechanism. The middle ear uses three tiny bones, the malleus, the incus, and the stapes, to convey vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear. There are three main components of the human auditory system: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.
The ossicles (also called auditory ossicles) are three bones in either middle ear that are among the smallest bones in the human body. They serve to transmit sound vibrations sent from the ear drum to the fluid-filled labyrinth ( cochlea ). The absence of the auditory ossicles would constitute a moderate-to-severe hearing loss.
In the anatomy of humans and various other tetrapods, the eardrum, also called the tympanic membrane or myringa, is a thin, cone-shaped membrane that separates the external ear from the middle ear. Its function is to transmit sound from the air to the ossicles inside the middle ear, and thence to the oval window in the fluid-filled cochlea.
The utricle and saccule are the two otolith organs in the vertebrate inner ear. They are part of the balancing system ( membranous labyrinth) in the vestibule of the bony labyrinth (small oval chamber). [1] They use small stones and a viscous fluid to stimulate hair cells to detect motion and orientation.