De. Zetes et Cr. Steele, FLUID-STRUCTURE INTERACTION OF THE STEREOCILIA BUNDLE IN RELATION TO MECHANOTRANSDUCTION, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 101(6), 1997, pp. 3593-3601
Current hypotheses regarding mechanotransduction rely upon motion of t
he stereocilia relative to the apical surface of the hair cell. The vi
scosity of the surrounding endolymphatic fluid will, however, attenuat
e stereocilia motion at higher frequencies of excitation. To investiga
te stereocilia motion for physiologically reasonable deflections and f
requencies of excitation, the fluid-structure interaction of the stere
ocilia bundle is considered analytically. Solutions in the frequency d
omain are determined for stereocilia bundle dimensions at several loca
tions along the cochlear duct of the chinchilla. Results indicate that
motion of the stereocilia is analogous to that of a low-pass filter.
Comparison of these solutions with Greenwood's frequency-place map dem
onstrates that motion of the stereocilia bundle exists without substan
tial attenuation at least up to frequencies appropriate for the locati
on of the corresponding hair cell along the cochlear duct. The variati
on in stereocilia morphology within the mammalian cochlea thus appears
to provide a collection of low-pass mechanoreceptors, arranged in ord
er of increasing corner frequency across the auditory spectrum. (C) 19
97 Acoustical Society of America.