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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 ]
The bony labyrinth (also osseous labyrinth or otic capsule) is the rigid, bony outer wall of the inner ear in the temporal bone. It consists of three parts: the vestibule, semicircular canals, and cochlea. These are cavities hollowed out of the substance of the bone, and lined by periosteum.
The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth , in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus . [ 2 ] [ 3 ] A core component of the cochlea is the organ of Corti , the sensory organ of hearing, which is distributed along the partition separating the fluid chambers in ...
The inner ear structurally begins at the oval window, which receives vibrations from the incus of the middle ear. Vibrations are transmitted into the inner ear into a fluid called endolymph, which fills the membranous labyrinth. The endolymph is situated in two vestibules, the utricle and saccule, and eventually transmits to the cochlea, a ...
The semicircular canals are three semicircular interconnected tubes located in the innermost part of each ear, the inner ear. The three canals are the lateral, anterior and posterior semicircular canals. They are the part of the bony labyrinth, a periosteum-lined cavity on the petrous part of the temporal bone filled with perilymph.
The macula of utricle (macula acustica utriculi) is a small (2 by 3 mm) thickening lying horizontally on the floor of the utricle where the epithelium contains vestibular hair cells that allow a person to perceive changes in latitudinal acceleration as well as the effects of gravity; it receives the utricular filaments of the acoustic nerve.
[7] [8] [9] There are two different types of fluid that surround the hair cells of the inner ear. The endolymph is the fluid that surrounds the apical surfaces of hair cells. Potassium is the major cation in the endolymph and is thought to be responsible for carrying the receptor currents in the cochlea.
Lightly resting atop the longest cilia of the inner hair cells is the tectorial membrane, which moves back and forth with each cycle of sound, tilting the cilia, which is what elicits the hair cells' electrical responses. Inner hair cells, like the photoreceptor cells of the eye, show a graded response, instead of the spikes typical of other ...