Sound Reception and Synaptic Transmission in Goldfish Hair Cells

Abstract

There has been much progress in peripheral auditory physiology since the 1970s, especially in elucidating the mechanism of action of sensory hair cells and the role played by inner and outer hair cells regarding tuning in the cochlea. Since 1967, our group has been engaged in the study of peripheral mechanisms of sound reception in the goldfish sacculus, i.e., its inner ear [21,23,24]. Although the goldfish sacculus is an otolith organ, it is specialized for the reception of low frequency sound, in the range from a few hundred to a little over 1 kHz. In many aspects, it resembles a cochlea rather than a vestibular organ, as indicated by the absolute sensitivity which is about the same as in the human ear [65], and by the fact that the effect of efferent nerve stimulation is purely inhibitory, as in the cochlea [18]. A similar stimulation more often produces facilitatory rather than inhibitory effects in vestibular organs in fish as well as in mammals [36]. The goldfish sacculus, like the cochlea, is an organ with intense metabolic activity, as indicated by the high susceptibility to hypoxia (Suzue, Wu, and Furukawa, in preparation). The present review article deals with aspects of the goldfish sacculus which seem relevant to a better understanding of peripheral auditory mechanisms. © 1986, PHYSIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN. All rights reserved.