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Body Position, Hearing

sensing body position

  • lateral line system - helps fish sense objects from vibrations around them
    • mov’t in environment causes stereocilia (hair) on cupula membrane to move >> action potential >> messages sent to brain
    • bending of hair can have excitatory/inhibitive effects, depending on direction of bend
  • statocyst - allows invertebrates to move themselves in respect to gravity
    • cilia embedded in calcium carbonate
    • cilia bends when position changes
  • vestibular apparatus - saccule, utricle, semicircular canals used to determine position in vertebrates
    • similar to mechanism used in lateral line system
    • hair found in otolith membrane
    • utricle more sensitive to horizontal mov’t, saccule more sensitive to vertical mov’t
    • semicircular canals - gives sense of angular acceleration

ear - actually works better in water than air 

  • outer ear - air vibrations travel through ear canal to eardrum (tympanic membrane)
  • middle ear - contains 3 ossicles (small bones): malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), stapes (stirrup)
    • connected to throat by Eustachian tube to equalize air pressure
  • inner ear - contains cochlea (contains cochlear duct)
    • vestibular/tympanic canal located on top/bottom of cochlear duct
    • all 3 chambers filled w/ fluid (vibrations >> fluid pressure waves)
    • organ of Corti - contains basilar membrane, hair cells, tectorial membrane
    • stimulation of hair cells >> action potential >> impulses interpreted as sound
    • different fiber lengths in basilar membrane >> different pitch
  • sonar - direction of sound easily determined due to location of 2 ears
    • distance of sound hard to determine due to environment
    • echolocation - emitting sounds and using the time it takes for the sound to come back in order to determine location
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