auditory hair

They are supporting cells for the auditory hair cells in the organ of Corti.

The human ear is able to detect differences in pitch through the movement of auditory hair cells found on the basilar membrane.

There are many kinds of deafness, but most come from the loss of the auditory hair cells in the cochlea.

Importantly, gap junction channels are found between cochlear supporting cells, but not auditory hair cells.

The cochlea contains two cell types, auditory hair cells for mechanotransduction and supporting cells.

Mutations of the MCOLN3 gene in mice result in auditory hair cell death and deafness.

The relatively small number of the auditory hair cells is surprising when compared to other sensory cells such as the rods and cones of the visual system.

In the inner ear, the auditory hair cells are arranged in two areas of the cochlea, the basilar papilla and the amphibian papilla.

In mammals, the auditory hair cells are located within the organ of Corti on a thin basilar membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear.

The auditory hair cells in the cochlea are at the core of the auditory system's special functionality (similar hair cells are located in the semicircular canals).

These auditory hair cells, unlike those in mammals, are known to spontaneously regenerate following injury, with experimental evidence showing that this ability to proliferate is mediated by a micro-RNA called miR181a.

High frequency sounds will stimulate the auditory hair cells at the base of the basilar membrane while medium frequency sounds cause vibrations of auditory hair cells located at the middle of the basilar membrane.

Thus the loss of low number (in the order of thousands) of auditory hair cells can be devastating while the loss of a larger number of retinal cells (in the order to hundreds of thousands) will not be as bad from a sensory standpoint.