Outer hair cells stir cochlear fluids.

We hypothesized that active outer hair cells drive cochlear fluid circulation. The hypothesis was tested by delivering the neurotoxin, kainic acid, to the intact round window of young gerbil cochleae while monitoring auditory responses in the cochlear nucleus. Sounds presented at a modest level significantly expedited kainic acid delivery.

Profile analysis in listeners with normal and elevated audiometric thresholds: Behavioral and modeling results.

Profile-analysis experiments measure the ability to discriminate complex sounds based on patterns, or profiles, in their amplitude spectra. Studies of profile analysis have focused on normal-hearing listeners and target frequencies near 1 kHz. To provide more insight into underlying mechanisms, we studied profile analysis over a large target frequency range (0.

A fast and accurate approximation of power-law adaptation for auditory computational models.

Power-law adaptation is a form of neural adaptation that has been recently implemented in a popular model of the mammalian auditory nerve to explain responses to modulated sound and adaptation over long time scales. However, the high computational cost of power-law adaptation, especially for longer simulations, means it must be approximated to be practically usable. Here, a straightforward scheme to approximate power-law adaptation is presented, demonstrating that the approximation improves on an existing approximation provided in the literature.

Otoacoustic emissions but not behavioral measurements predict cochlear-nerve frequency tuning in an avian vocal-communication specialist.

Frequency analysis by the cochlea forms a key foundation for all subsequent auditory processing. Stimulus-frequency otoacoustic emissions (SFOAEs) are a potentially powerful alternative to traditional behavioral experiments for estimating cochlear tuning without invasive testing, as is necessary in humans. Which methods accurately predict cochlear tuning remains controversial due to only a single animal study comparing SFOAE-based, behavioral, and cochlear frequency tuning in the same species.