Outer Ear
The outer ear is composed of this many parts.
The middle ear is an air-filled cavity separated from the outer ear by this membrane. (hint: it's elastic, thin, and cone-shaped)
What is the tympanic membrane?
What is the oval window?
This cranial nerve picks up the neural impulses created by the movement of the hair cells in the cochlea. It's a bundle of neurons with two branches.
What is cranial nerve VIII (the acoustic nerve)?
The birth of the audiology profession occuring during this time in history.
What is World War II?
The most visible part of the ear, composed primarily of cartilage, which funnels the sound to the ear canal and helps localize sound.
What is the auricle/pinna?
The three small bones (malleus, incus, and stapes) in the middle ear form this chain.
What is the ossicular chain?
What are the semicircular canals known to be responsible for?
The auditory or acoustic branch supplies many hair cells of the cochlea and conducts electrical sound impulses from the cochlea to this other part of the body.
What is the brain?
This country has 3 out of every 1,000 children born deaf or hard of hearing.
What is the United States?
Part of the ear that goes from the pinna to the tympanic membrane or ear drum.
What is external auditory canal/external auditory meatus?
This tube connects the middle ear to the nasopharynx. (hint: It helps maintain equal air pressure within and outside the middle ear.)
What is the eustachian tube?
The vestibular system and cochlea are the major structures of the inner ear. Here energy is converted to this type of impulse, which stimulates the acoustic nerve.
What is electrical impulse?
From the brainstem, the acoustic nerve fibers project sound to this lobe of the brain. It is the primary auditory area.
What is the temporal lobe?
60% of veterans returning from Afghanistan or Iraq have a hearing loss accompanied by this ringing or buzzing noise in their ear.
What is tinnitus?
An instrument for examining the ear canal.
What is the otoscope?
When a person hears very loud noises that could damage the ears, the middle ear muscles contract into this reflexive action.
What is the acoustic reflex?
The floor of the cochlear duct is called this membrane. It contains the organ of Corti.
What is basilar membrane?
This branch of the auditory nervous system is concerned with body equilibrium or balance.
What is the vestibular branch?
What is 50 million?
The function of these special cells are to lubricate and cleanse the the canal, and protect the ear from fungi, bacteria, and small insects.
What is cerumen?
This is the smallest muscle in the body and innervated by cranial nerve VII (the facial nerve). It assists with dampening and reducing vibrations along with the tensor tympani muscle (innervated by cranial nerve V, the trigeminal nerve).
What is the stapedius muscle?
The vibrations created by the footplate of the stapes into the oval window create wavelike movements in the perilymph. Through this membrane, those movements are transmitted to the endolymph.
What is reissner's membrane?
At the brainstem level, most of the auditory nerve fibers from one ear decussate (cross over) to the opposite side, forming this type of pathway.
What is contralateral pathways?
The human ear is capable of responding to frequencies in this range of Hz.
What is 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz?