Tonotopically arranged traveling waves in the miniature hearing organ of bushcrickets

  • Place based frequency discrimination (tonotopy) is a fundamental property of the coiled mammalian cochlea. Sound vibrations mechanically conducted to the hearing organ manifest themselves into slow moving waves that travel along the length of the organ, also referred to as traveling waves. These traveling waves form the basis of the tonotopic frequency representation in the inner ear of mammals. However, so far, due to the secure housing of the inner ear, these waves only could be measured partially over small accessible regions of the inner ear in a living animal. Here, we demonstrate the existence of tonotopically ordered traveling waves covering most of the length of a miniature hearing organ in the leg of bushcrickets in vivo using laser Doppler vibrometery. The organ is only 1 mm long and its geometry allowed us to investigate almost the entire length with a wide range of stimuli (6 to 60 kHz). The tonotopic location of the traveling wave peak was exponentially related to stimulus frequency. The traveling wave propagated along the hearing organ from the distal (high frequency) to the proximal (low frequency) part of the leg, which is opposite to the propagation direction of incoming sound waves. In addition, we observed a non-linear compression of the velocity response to varying sound pressure levels. The waves are based on the delicate micromechanics of cellular structures different to those of mammals. Hence place based frequency discrimination by traveling waves is a physical phenomenon that presumably evolved in mammals and bushcrickets independently.

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Metadaten
Author:Arun Palghat UdayashankarGND, Manfred KösslORCiD, Manuela NowotnyORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-237368
DOI:https://doi.org/doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031008
ISSN:1932-6203
Pubmed Id:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22348035
Parent Title (English):PLoS One
Publisher:PLoS
Place of publication:Lawrence, Kan.
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2012/03/22
Date of first Publication:2012/02/13
Publishing Institution:Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg
Release Date:2012/03/22
Volume:7
Issue:2: e31008
Page Number:8
HeBIS-PPN:302908676
Institutes:Biowissenschaften / Biowissenschaften
Dewey Decimal Classification:5 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik / 57 Biowissenschaften; Biologie / 570 Biowissenschaften; Biologie
Sammlungen:Universitätspublikationen
Sammlung Biologie / Sondersammelgebiets-Volltexte
Licence (German):License LogoCreative Commons - Namensnennung 3.0