Development Of Receptor Structures In The Inner Ear Of Vertebrates

The function of vertebrate hearing is served by a surprising variety of sensory structures in the different groups of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. This book discusses the origin, specialization, and functional properties of sensory hair cells, beginning with environmental constraints on acoustic systems and addressing in detail the evolutionary history behind modern structure and function in the vertebrate ear. Taking a comparative approach, chapters are devoted to each of the vertebrate groups, outlining the transition to land existence and the further parallel and independent adaptations of amniotic groups living in air. The volume explores in depth the specific properties of hair cells that allowed them to become sensitive to sound and capable of analyzing sounds into their respective frequency components. Evolution of the Vertebrate Auditory System is directed to a broad audience of biologists and clinicians, from the level of advanced undergraduate students to professionals interested in learning more about the evolution, structure, and function of the ear.

An international group of leading investigators discuss recent progress of sensory structures in lower and higher vertebrates. Experts in two relevant fields--the cell cycle and mitogenic growth factors--present insightful contributions in the search for precursors and/or stem cells in each sense organ plus the signals which regulate those precursors' differentiation both in normal development and regeneration.

The Springer Handbook of Auditory Research presents a series of compreh- sive and synthetic reviews of the fundamental topics in modern auditory - search. The volumes are aimed at all individuals with interests in hearing research including advanced graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and clinical investigators. The volumes are intended to introduce new investigators to important aspects of hearing science and to help established investigators to betterunderstandthefundamentaltheoriesanddatain?eldsofhearingthatthey may not normally follow closely. Each volume presents a particular topic comprehensively, and each servesas a synthetic overview and guide to the literature. As such, the chapters present neither exhaustive data reviews nor original research that has not yet appeared in peer-reviewed journals. The volumes focus on topics that have developed a solid data and conceptual foundation rather than on those for which a literature is only beginning to develop. New research areas will be covered on a timely basis in the series as they begin to mature. Eachvolumeintheseriesconsistsofafewsubstantialchaptersonaparticular topic. In some cases, the topics will be ones of traditional interest for which there is a substantial body of data and theory, such as auditory neuroanatomy (Vol. 1) and neurophysiology (Vol. 2). Other volumes in the series deal with topics that have begun to mature more recently, suchasdevelopment,plasticity, and computational models of neural processing. In many cases, the series - itorsarejoinedbyaco-editorhavingspecialexpertiseinthetopicofthevolume.

This book presents a distillation of many years of investigation by the author and his associates on the problem of sensory reception. Both our own data and data from the scientific literature on the electron microscopy, cytochemistry, biochemistry and electrophysiology of the organs of vision, taste, smell, hearing and gravitation, are presented to show that the evolution of the sense organs of all animals on our planet is based on a receptor cell equipped with a motile antenna, a biological recorder of information concerning certain types of energy reaching the animal from the environment. The conversion or encoding of this energy into information is effected with the aid of special protein molecules positioned in the plasma membrane of the antennae. The action of the unit of energy of a stimulus on such a specific protein molecule causes a change of shape, and this is the basis of the trigger mechanism of reception, leading to the stimulation of the receptor cell and the transmission of the information encoded in this cell in the form of nerve impulses to the central nervous system. The present monograph summarizes over 30 years of working experience by the author and his associates in the field of evolution of sense organs. Material is used here from his earlier monographs: The Retina of the Eye Vertebrates, 1947, The Morphology of the Organ of Smell, 1957, The Organ of Corti: Its Histophy siology and Histochemistry, 1964, written jointly with L. K.