Static length changes of cochlear outer hair cells can tune low-frequency hearing
Fig 7
Resting length of outer hair cells can modulate reticular-lamina vibration.
How much reticular-lamina vibration is evoked by an oscillatory length change of the outer hair cells depends critically on the operating point set by the static length change of the outer hair cell. An oscillatory length change of an outer hair cell around an elongated state, characterized by a negative value of ϵ, leads to only a very small motion of the reticular lamina (blue). The vibration of the reticular lamina becomes increasingly larger for outer hair cells that oscillate around a progressively more contracted length (red and green).