Subject: Re: Traveling waves or resonance? From: Martin Braun <nombraun(at)TELIA.COM> Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:42:24 +0200On Friday, October 15, Andrew Bell wrote: > .... Happily, > progress has been made in my endeavours to revive a resonance theory of > hearing Current knowledge on resonance, traveling waves, and amplifiers in the inner ear goes well beyond that what Andrew Bell now reviews. Also, the main parts of this information is easily accessible on the web. I would like to comment, however, on two popular misconceptions, which were now repeated again, and for which no, or very little, information is available on the web. 1) Thomas Gold predicted the cochlear amplifier, but not otoacoustic emissions (OAEs). The "ringing in the ear" which he tried to measure, was tonal tinnitus, which, in the vast majority of cases, has nothing to do with OAEs. Such tinnitus is nearly always neurally based and can never be picked up with any microphone. 2) Gold's argument that the inner ear "needed" a mechanical amplifier before the stage of neural transmission is actually quite silly. Other sensory organs have their amplification cascades on a biochemical level within the sensory cells. The same also works in hearing. Only birds and mammals have specialized mechanical pre-amp cells, as an additional mechanism. This "design" provides several advantages, but it is by no means a precondition of hyper-sensitive hearing. Martin ---------------------------- Martin Braun Neuroscience of Music S-671 95 Klässbol Sweden web site: http://w1.570.telia.com/~u57011259/index.htm