Graduate Skills Seminar:

Acoustical-mechanical-electrical modeling of the inner ear

Presenter: John Cormack

Friday, April 15 at 3 PM in ETC 4.150

The organ of Corti is the sensory organ in the inner ear in which acoustic energy is converted into neural impulses that the brain interprets as sound. Mechanical vibrations in the cochlear partition are thought to be self-amplified by electro-motive outer hair cells allowing the mammalian ear to achieve high fidelity over a large range of frequencies. The anatomy of the cochlea will be examined with emphasis on mechanical function. An overview of multi-scale modeling efforts will be given, from the large scale fluid-structure mechanics to the small scale hair cell mechanics.