Re: painfully loud sound (Tony Miller )

Subject: Re: painfully loud sound
From:    Tony Miller  <ajmiller(at)MIT.EDU>
Date:    Wed, 10 Nov 2004 13:22:33 -0500

jan schnupp wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> while teaching medical students some basic Neuroscience (including
> nociceptive pathways and pain) I wondered: what determines whether we
> would consider a particular sound to be painfully loud?


That is a good (and, as yet, unanswered) question.

Charlie Liberman tells me that no one has been able to establish what
the mechanism is, but that the unmylinated Type-II fibers have been
suspected.

Sounds like a PhD thesis for some brave soul...

Cheers,
-Tony

--
Tony Miller
Eaton-Peabody Laboratory, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
243 Charles St, Boston, MA 02114
ajmiller(at)mit.edu | (617) 510-3629 | http://tonymiller.info