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Structure Of The Ear : How It Sounds

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Structure of the Ear (How we translate sounds) To understand how deafness occurs, we first need to understand how people regularly hear. The ear can be split into three divisions: the external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The external ear collects sound waves and sends the waves down to the ear canal which then vibrate the eardrum. The middle ear carries sound waves to the inner ear and also contains the smallest bones in the body. The middle ear also contains the Eustachian tube which connects the middle ear to the middle throat. The inner ear converts these intercepted sound waves into neural signals and also contains the cochlea. There are other things in the ear besides these three divisions such as the organ of corti which contains the cells responsible for the hearing hair cells. There are two types of these hair cells in the ear: inner and outer hair cells. Both of these cells work within the cochlea and have a stereocilia, an organelle of hair cells, but the outer hair cells function specifically in the cochlea. The outer hair cells contain the stereocilia at the top of the cell and the nucleus at the bottom. When the stereocilia bends, an electromotive response occurs which changes the cell length with every sound wave. Also in the ear is the auditory nerve. The auditory nerve has fibers that rest below the hair cells and pass the sound wave signals to the brain. The hair cells also have sensory cells which sit on top of the basilar membrane. At the tip

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