Manningham Hearing Clinic
Helping the Hearing Impaired since 1988
 
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The Human Ear       
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The Human Ear

The ear is a sophisticated, sensitive and complex organ, which consists of three main sections:

The Outer Ear

The outer ear is made up of the external cartilaginous part of the ear and the ear canal. The eardrum is located at the end of the ear canal and forms the boundary to the middle ear. The outer ear functions as a kind of satellite dish that picks up sound waves and conducts them to the eardrum, causing it to vibrate.

The Middle Ear

The middle ear is an air-filled space, whose air pressure is regulated by the eustachian tube, which connects the middle ear to the back of the throat. There are three tiny bones in the middle ear collectively called the ossicles (malleus, incus and stapes). This chain of bones forms a lever mechanism, conducting the vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear (cochlea). Attached to the bones are two small muscles, which are activated when very loud sounds reach the ear. These muscles work to reduce the effects of excessive sound pressure before reaching the inner ear.

The Inner Ear

The inner ear, or cochlea, is shaped like a snail shell and filled with fluid. The balance organ is attached to the cochlea and is made up of three fluid-filled semi-circular canals. The oval window connects the middle ear and the inner ear. The stapes footplate is connected to the oval window and functions as a piston moving the fluid of the inner ear.

This movement of the fluid activates the hair cells in the inner ear (there are about 20,000 of these "sensory cells"). When the hair cells are activated, they send impulses via the acoustic nerve to the brain, which perceives these impluses as sound.

Via these fantastic, winding ways, the ear is able to pick up sound waves, transform them to bone vibrations then to wave movement in fluid and finally to nerve impluses that can be interpreted by the brain. evene the slightest flaw in the complex system can compromise hearing ability.

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