Abstract
Nonlinear physics plays an essential role in hearing. We demonstrate on a mesoscopic description level that during the evolutionary perfection of the hearing sensor, nonlinear physics led to the unique design of the cochlea observed in mammals, and that this design requests as a consequence the perception of pitch. Our insight challenges the view that mostly genetics is responsible for the uniformity of the construction of the mammalian hearing sensor. Our analysis also suggests that scaleable and non-scaleable arrangements of nonlinear sound detectors may be at the origin of the differences between hearing sensors in amniotic lineages.
Highlights
Nonlinear physics plays an essential role in hearing
Seemingly very different at first view, the human cochlear hair cell that we will later centrally deal with, follows genetically closely the building principle of the chordotonal organs[18]. These observations seem to point at a joint early origin and parallel evolution of the hearing system. While these genetical or physiological approaches have shed a fascinating light on how a major biological sense evolved and developed, they do not provide the arguments as to how this may have led to the sensory uniformity that we observe in particular within the mammalian family, despite evolutionary sensory specialization
The observed construction convergence towards a uniform ‘mammalian’ cochlea appears as a natural consequence of nonlinear physics, rather than of genetics
Summary
**depending on species, very di erent implementations (shown is a composite) mammals. As we go down the mammalian cochlear duct, to keep pace with the stiffness of the basilar membrane decaying exponentially, outer/ inner hair cells increase their length (Fig. 7c), to entail compatible whole-cell slope conductances and capacitances[41] (Fig. 7d) This concept has the advantage that the frequency properties of each sensor do not need to be genetically set, but follow essentially from the scaling of one single physical construction. Lacking a low upper limit in frequency space, mammals were pushed to an exquisite elongation of their basilar membrane, which by spiraling for space, led to the mammalian cochlea’s final form To us, these facts strongly point at a primary physical, in contrast to a genetical, origin of the convergence of the mammalian hearing sensor. Given the general importance of hearing for mammals, we suppose that deviant construction plans would already have entered the scene, if preferable
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