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Concept
Hair cell
Summary
Hair cells are the sensory receptors of both the auditory system and the vestibular system in the ears of all vertebrates, and in the lateral line organ of fishes. Through mechanotransduction, hair cells detect movement in their environment.
In mammals, the auditory hair cells are located within the spiral organ of Corti on the thin basilar membrane in the cochlea of the inner ear. They derive their name from the tufts of stereocilia called hair bundles that protrude from the apical surface of the cell into the fluid-filled cochlear duct. The stereocilia number from fifty to a hundred in each cell while being tightly packed together and decrease in size the further away they are located from the kinocilium. The hair bundles are arranged as stiff columns that move at their base in response to stimuli applied to the tips.
Mammalian cochlear hair cells are of two anatomically and functionally distinct types, known as outer, and inner hair cells. Damage to these hair cells results in decreased hearing sensitivity, and because the inner ear hair cells cannot regenerate, this damage is permanent. Damage to hair cells can cause damage to the vestibular system and therefore causing difficulties in balancing. However, other organisms, such as the frequently studied zebrafish, and birds have hair cells that can regenerate.
The human cochlea contains on the order of 3,500 inner hair cells and 12,000 outer hair cells at birth.
The outer hair cells mechanically amplify low-level sound that enters the cochlea. The amplification may be powered by the movement of their hair bundles, or by an electrically driven motility of their cell bodies. This so-called somatic electromotility amplifies sound in all land vertebrates.
It is affected by the closing mechanism of the mechanical sensory ion channels at the tips of the hair bundles.
The inner hair cells transform the sound vibrations in the fluids of the cochlea into electrical signals that are then relayed via the auditory nerve to the auditory brainstem and to the auditory cortex.
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