Question on a 1998 paper by A. Recio et al.

["reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx" <reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!

I have a question on the paper "Basilar-membrane responses
to clicks at the base of the chinchilla cochlea", by A. Recio,
N. C. Rich, S. S. Narayan, and M. A. Ruggero (1998),
JASA 103, 1972-1989:

In Section I.C., they write: "[...] the laser beam was reflected
from glass microbeads placed on the basilar membrane."
Was there, at a given moment in time and on the BM of a
given animal, one such microbead, or were there several?
If the latter were the case, it would be understandable that,
in Figs. 9 and 10 (L13), there are at least two active peaks,
a high one at 9.0 kHz and a lower one at 8.1 kHz. For levels
above 66 dB, the 8.1-kHz peak is higher than the 9.0-kHz
one because they sit on the steep high-frequency-side slope
of the passive peak centred at 6 kHz.

The disappearance of these "notches" post mortem (Section
II.D. of the paper) would then be due to the disappearance 
of all active peaks.

Reinhart Frosch..  





Reinhart Frosch,
Dr. phil. nat.,
r. PSI and ETH Zurich,
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E-mail: reinifrosch@xxxxxxxxxx .