Homeostatic Mechanisms in the Cochlea

Abstract

The challenge of every cell is to maintain intracellular conditions that may vastly differ from the external environment, yet still communicate with this environment. Walter Cannon (1929) first applied the term “homeostasis” to the concept, originally formulated by Claude Bernard (1878), of the constancy of the milieu interne as essential for the existence of free-living organisms. Broadly defined, homeostasis represents the sum of the physiological processes in an organism, a multicellular system, or a cell that maintain the relative stability of its internal environment and thus provide the basis for its survival and function. The inner ear, as suggested by Hawkins (1973), possesses a variety of microhomeostatic mechanisms that sustain the integrity, sensitivity, and dynamic range of the organ of Corti. They make possible its function as a transducer, although they do not include the transduction process itself.