Abstract
The inner ear and its two subsystems, the vestibular and the auditory system, exemplify how the identification of distinct cellular or anatomical elements ahead of elucidating their function, leads to a medley of anatomically defined and recognition oriented names that confused generations of students. Past attempts to clarify this unyielding nomenclature had incomplete success, as they could not yet generate an explanatory nomenclature. Building on these past efforts, we propose a somewhat revised nomenclature that keeps most of the past nomenclature as proposed and follows a simple rule: Anatomical and explanatory terms are combined followed, in brackets, by the name of the discoverer (see Table 1). For example, the “organ of Corti” will turn into the spiral auditory organ (of Corti). This revised nomenclature build as much as possible on existing terms that have explanatory value while keeping the recognition of discoverers alive to allow a transition for those used to the eponyms. Once implements, the proposed terminology should help future generations in learning the structure-function correlates of the ear more easily. To facilitate future understanding, leading genetic identifiers for a given structure have been added wherever possible.
Highlights
The ear was recognized as the organ for hearing since antiquity, but its function could only be understood mechanistically after Corti (1851) described some of the cells on the basilar membrane of what Kölliker soon referred to as the organ of Corti (Kölliker, 1852, 1867)
Eponyms avoided associating mistaken functions to various parts of the ear (Politzer, 1907, 1981; Lustig et al, 1998; Mudry, 2001) and isolated the morphological description from functional speculations, certainly an important consideration at a time when vestibular and auditory function of the ear were mostly unknown and in many cases misinterpreted. Adding to this confusion in the more recent literature were mistranslations [the border cells of Held are mostly referred to as “inner border cells” (Held, 1902) due to a mistake in one summary image] that identified what appears to be the same cell by different names
It is to be expected that further single cell sequencing will likely lead to subdivisions of vestibular ganglion neurons as well given their cellular heterogeneity. While some genes such as Sox2 are associated early in development with all neurosensory cells of the ear, they later become restricted to supporting cells following upregulation of high levels of Atoh1 in hair cells (Dabdoub et al, 2008)
Summary
The ear was recognized as the organ for hearing since antiquity, but its function could only be understood mechanistically after Corti (1851) described some of the cells on the basilar membrane of what Kölliker soon referred to as the organ of Corti (Kölliker, 1852, 1867). Eponyms avoided associating mistaken functions to various parts of the ear (Politzer, 1907, 1981; Lustig et al, 1998; Mudry, 2001) and isolated the morphological description from functional speculations, certainly an important consideration at a time when vestibular and auditory function of the ear were mostly unknown and in many cases misinterpreted Adding to this confusion in the more recent literature were mistranslations [the border cells of Held are mostly referred to as “inner border cells” (Held, 1902) due to a mistake in one summary image] that identified what appears to be the same cell by different names.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call