Talk:Transduction (physiology)

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Here Comes Everybody.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:37, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Major deletion/Clean-up of intro paragraph
"Auditory Transduction is the process of translating sound from when it enters the ear to when it reaches the neural impulses inside the ear. Because the human ear has three main parts: outer, middle, and inner pieces, the entire process of transduction has a lot of complicated and confusing components so here is a summary.

The outer part of the ear is called the pinna, and this is the visible part of the ear. When sound is created, there are changes in air pressure, and the pinna is able to collect those changes and carry them to the ear drum (tympanic membrane). To do this, the pinna funnels the changes in air pressure down the external auditory canal which is a tube goes from the outer ear to the middle ear. This part of the ear is made of cartilage and the inner ear is made up of more bones. Because this external auditory canal only travels to the middle ear, the changes in air pressure are then brought to the tympanic membrane, or more commonly called, the ear drum.

When the ear drum receives the changes in air pressure, it responds through vibrations that moves three tiny bones. These bones are the malleus, incus, and stapes. These three tiny bones together make up the ossicles and in latin, their names mean hammer, anvil, and stirrup because of their shapes. They work together to convert the vibrations from the ear drum into pressure waves that are amplified. These amplified waves are then sent to the fluid of the cochlea, which is in the inner ear. The waves have to be amplified because the fluid in the cochlea reduces sound.

Going from inner ear outwards, the stapes is first, the incus is second, and the mallets is on the outermost part of these three bones. At the end of the stapes is the cochlea that is filled with fluid, and the middle ear acts as a mechanical amplifier to make sure the sound waves will be able to reach and be interpreted by the organ of Corti. Here is a very brief description of how this all works:

At the end of the stapes, there is a footplate that is supposed to be translating vibrations into pressure waves. But the tympanic membrane (ear drum) is almost three times the size of this footplate. This is why it is important that all three bones in the ossicles work together. The incus acts as a lever and transmits force onto the stapes so that the vibrational energy is concentrated. This concentrated energy is what allows the middle ear to actually amplify the pressure waves so much (twenty-two times more than the air that initially entered the pinna).

At the base of the cochlea, there is an oval window, and this is what the footplate at the end of the stapes presses on. When the footplate presses on this oval window, it pressurizes the fluid in the vestibular canal which is the part of the cochlea that is filled with fluid and receives incoming acoustic vibrations. At the base of the cochlea, there is a round window that is a flexible membrane. It absorbs the pressure that is left after the stapes' footplate sends the pressurized waves into the cochlea and drains it from the system so that theres not limitless pressure going into the cochlea at all times without any release.

The basilar membrane is also an important part of the transduction process because it separates the scala media and the scala tympani: two tubes filled with liquid that run along the coil of the cochlea. When there is a transfer of pressure from one side to the other, the basilar membrane creates a traveling wave. The basilar membrane is important in the concept of tonotopy because the frequency distribution that the basilar membrane portrays through having a more flexible apex and a more stiff base. Depending on how far down the membrane you are from the base, a different frequency will result, so the different places in the membrane are sensitive to different frequencies which truly helps in the entire process of auditory transduction.

Auditory transduction is not the only marvelous type of transduction our body performs though. Here are some others:

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- The above is the body of text which I am removing from the introduction to the entry on Transduction (Physiology). None of the material included is appropriate for the opening of the article and it has no citations. Here Comes Everybody (talk) 19:12, 3 April 2018 (UTC)