{"title":"Effectiveness of outer hair cells as cochlear amplifier: In simple model systems.","authors":"Kuni H Iwasa","doi":"10.1016/j.bpj.2025.05.029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs) have two mechanosensitive elements: the hair bundle (HB) with mechanotrasducer channels and the piezoelectric lateral wall of the cell body. The present report examines how these elements interact with each other by incorporating OHCs into the simplest local cochlear models. In the frequency range, typically above 1 kHz, where capacitive conductance is greater than the ionic conductance, HB conductance drives the piezoelectric cell body and amplified oscillation by countering viscous drag, whereas the cell body increases its stiffness owing to strain-induced polarization, elevating the resonance frequency. Since HB sensitivity is essential for amplification, the resonance is not pure piezoelectric but semi-piezoelectric. In the lower-frequency range, typically lower than 100 Hz, strain-induced polarization contributes to drag, and the HB sensitivity increases cell body stiffness.</p>","PeriodicalId":8922,"journal":{"name":"Biophysical journal","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biophysical journal","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2025.05.029","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIOPHYSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs) have two mechanosensitive elements: the hair bundle (HB) with mechanotrasducer channels and the piezoelectric lateral wall of the cell body. The present report examines how these elements interact with each other by incorporating OHCs into the simplest local cochlear models. In the frequency range, typically above 1 kHz, where capacitive conductance is greater than the ionic conductance, HB conductance drives the piezoelectric cell body and amplified oscillation by countering viscous drag, whereas the cell body increases its stiffness owing to strain-induced polarization, elevating the resonance frequency. Since HB sensitivity is essential for amplification, the resonance is not pure piezoelectric but semi-piezoelectric. In the lower-frequency range, typically lower than 100 Hz, strain-induced polarization contributes to drag, and the HB sensitivity increases cell body stiffness.
期刊介绍：
BJ publishes original articles, letters, and perspectives on important problems in modern biophysics. The papers should be written so as to be of interest to a broad community of biophysicists. BJ welcomes experimental studies that employ quantitative physical approaches for the study of biological systems, including or spanning scales from molecule to whole organism. Experimental studies of a purely descriptive or phenomenological nature, with no theoretical or mechanistic underpinning, are not appropriate for publication in BJ. Theoretical studies should offer new insights into the understanding ofexperimental results or suggest new experimentally testable hypotheses. Articles reporting significant methodological or technological advances, which have potential to open new areas of biophysical investigation, are also suitable for publication in BJ. Papers describing improvements in accuracy or speed of existing methods or extra detail within methods described previously are not suitable for BJ.
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