Tonotopically ordered traveling waves in the hearing organs of bushcrickets in-vivo

Abstract

Experimental investigation of auditory mechanics in the mammalian cochlea has been difficult to address in-vivo due to its secure housing inside the temporal bone. Here we studied the easily accessible hearing organ of bushcrickets, located in their forelegs, known as the crista acustica. A characteristic feature of the organ is that it is lined with an array of auditory receptors in a tonotopic fashion with lower frequencies processed at the proximal part and higher frequencies at the distal part of the foreleg. Each receptor cell is associated with so called cap cells. The cap cells, graded in size, are directly involved in the mechanics of transduction along with the part of the acoustic trachea that supports the cap cells. Functional similarities between the crista acustica and the vertebrate cochlea such as frequency selectivity and distortion product otoacoustic emissions have been well documented. In this study we used laser Doppler vibrometry to study the mechanics of the organ and observed sound induced traveling waves (TW) along it's length. Frequency representation was tonotopic with TW propagating from the high frequency to the low frequency region of the organ similar to the situation in the cochlea. Traveling wave velocity increased monotonically from 4 to 12 m/s for a frequency range of 6 to 60 kHz, reflecting a smaller topographic spread (organ length: 1 mm) compared to the guinea pig cochlea (organ length: 18 mm). The wavelength of the traveling wave decreased monotonically from 0.67 mm to 0.27 mm for the same frequency range. Vibration velocity of the organ reached noise threshold levels (10 μm/s) at 30 dB SPL for a frequency of 21 kHz. A small non-linear compression (73 dB increase in velocity for an 80 dB increase in SPL) was also observed at the 21 kHz. Our results indicate that bushcrickets can be a good model system for exploration of auditory mechanics in-vivo. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.