What Is Electromotility? - The History of Its Discovery and Its Relevance to Acoustics
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Acoustics Today Spring 2017 Vol. 13 Issue 1Subject: Thirty-five years ago, the members of the Physiological and Psychological Acoustics Technical Committee of the Acoustical Society of America were at a pivotal juncture in understanding hearing. The original description of the ability of the ears to produce sound had been published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America a few years earlier. Remarkable differences in neural circuitry and structural specializations in the hearing organ (Figures 1-4) were being described. It was a propitious time to take a close look at the outer hair cell (OHC), which was then the most structurally and functionally mysterious cell in the ear. We discovered that OHCs undergo rapid changes of cell shape in response to electrical stimulation, something we now call OHC electromotility (http://acousticstoday.org/OHCEM1).1 OHC electromotility revolutionized the hearing sciences by revealing the active process responsible for the sounds coming from the ear. The history behind the discovery, the subsequent biophysical investigations, and the role of electromotility in hearing are the topics of this narrative.
Thirty-five years ago, the members of the Physiological and Psychological Acoustics Technical Committee of the Acoustical Society of America were at a pivotal juncture in understanding hearing. The original description of the ability of the ears to produce sound had been published in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America a few years earlier. Remarkable differences in neural circuitry and structural specializations in the hearing organ (Figures 1-4) were being described. It was a propitious time to take a close look at the outer hair cell (OHC), which was then the most structurally and functionally mysterious cell in the ear. We discovered that OHCs undergo rapid changes of cell shape in response to electrical stimulation, something we now call OHC electromotility (http://acousticstoday.org/OHCEM1).1 OHC electromotility revolutionized the hearing sciences by revealing the active process responsible for the sounds coming from the ear. The history behind the discovery, the subsequent biophysical investigations, and the role of electromotility in hearing are the topics of this narrative.