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The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2.75 turns around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory organ of hearing, which is distributed along the partition separating the fluid chambers in the coiled tapered tube of the cochlea.
The saccule is a bed of sensory cells in the inner ear. It translates head movements into neural impulses for the brain to interpret. The saccule detects linear accelerations and head tilts in the vertical plane. When the head moves vertically, the sensory cells of the saccule are disturbed and the neurons connected to them begin transmitting impulses to the brain. These impulses travel along the vestibular portion of the eighth cranial nerve to the vestibular nuclei in the brainstem.
In physiology, transduction is the translation of arriving stimulus into an action potential by a sensory receptor. It begins when stimulus changes the membrane potential of a receptor cell.
Stimulus modality, also called sensory modality, is one aspect of a stimulus or what is perceived after a stimulus. For example, the temperature modality is registered after heat or cold stimulate a receptor. Some sensory modalities include: light, sound, temperature, taste, pressure, and smell. The type and location of the sensory receptor activated by the stimulus plays the primary role in coding the sensation. All sensory modalities work together to heighten stimuli sensation when necessary.
A mechanoreceptor, also called mechanoceptor, is a sensory receptor that responds to mechanical pressure or distortion. Mechanoreceptors are innervated by sensory neurons that convert mechanical pressure into electrical signals that, in animals, are sent to the central nervous system.
Cerci are paired appendages on the rear-most segments of many arthropods, including insects and symphylans. Many forms of cerci serve as sensory organs, but some serve as pinching weapons or as organs of copulation. In many insects, they simply may be functionless vestigial structures.
Johnston's organ is a collection of sensory cells found in the pedicel of the antennae in the class Insecta. Johnston's organ detects motion in the flagellum. It consists of scolopidia arrayed in a bowl shape, each of which contains a mechanosensory chordotonal neuron. The number of scolopidia varies between species. In homopterans, the Johnston's organs contain 25 - 79 scolopidia. The presence of Johnston's organ is a defining characteristic which separates the class Insecta from the other hexapods belonging to the group Entognatha. Johnston's organ was named after the physician Christopher Johnston, father of the physician and Assyriologist Christopher Johnston.
Acoustic resonance is a phenomenon in which an acoustic system amplifies sound waves whose frequency matches one of its own natural frequencies of vibration.
Chordotonal organs are stretch receptor organs found only in insects and crustaceans. They are located at most joints and are made up of clusters of scolopidia that either directly or indirectly connect two joints and sense their movements relative to one another. They can have both extero- and proprioceptive functions, for example sensing auditory stimuli or leg movement. The word was coined by Vitus Graber in 1882, though he interpreted them as being stretched between two points like a string, sensing vibrations through resonance.
A tympanal organ is a hearing organ in insects, consisting of a membrane (tympanum) stretched across a frame backed by an air sac and associated sensory neurons. Sounds vibrate the membrane, and the vibrations are sensed by a chordotonal organ. Hymenoptera do not have a tympanal organ, but they do have a Johnston's organ.
The tympanum is an external hearing structure in animals such as mammals, birds, some reptiles, some amphibians and some insects.
Insect physiology includes the physiology and biochemistry of insect organ systems.
Hearing, or auditory perception, is the ability to perceive sounds through an organ, such as an ear, by detecting vibrations as periodic changes in the pressure of a surrounding medium. The academic field concerned with hearing is auditory science.
A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. Although traditionally five human senses were identified as such, it is now recognized that there are many more. Senses used by non-human organisms are even greater in variety and number. During sensation, sense organs collect various stimuli for transduction, meaning transformation into a form that can be understood by the brain. Sensation and perception are fundamental to nearly every aspect of an organism's cognition, behavior and thought.
Ultrasound avoidance is an escape or avoidance reflex displayed by certain animal species that are preyed upon by echolocating predators. Ultrasound avoidance is known for several groups of insects that have independently evolved mechanisms for ultrasonic hearing. Insects have evolved a variety of ultrasound-sensitive ears based upon a vibrating tympanic membrane tuned to sense the bat's echolocating calls. The ultrasonic hearing is coupled to a motor response that causes evasion of the bat during flight.
A scolopidium is the fundamental unit of a mechanoreceptor organ in insects. It is a composition of three cells: a scolopale cap cell which caps the scolopale cell, and a bipolar sensory nerve cell.
Most fish possess highly developed sense organs. Nearly all daylight fish have color vision that is at least as good as a human's. Many fish also have chemoreceptors that are responsible for extraordinary senses of taste and smell. Although they have ears, many fish may not hear very well. Most fish have sensitive receptors that form the lateral line system, which detects gentle currents and vibrations, and senses the motion of nearby fish and prey. Sharks can sense frequencies in the range of 25 to 50 Hz through their lateral line.
Stimulus filtering occurs when an animal's nervous system fails to respond to stimuli that would otherwise cause a reaction to occur. The nervous system has developed the capability to perceive and distinguish between minute differences in stimuli, which allows the animal to only react to significant impetus. This enables the animal to conserve energy as it is not responding to unimportant signals.
The subgenual organ is an organ in insects that is involved in the perception of sound. The name refers to the location of the organ just below the knee in the tibia of all legs in most insects.
The femoral chordotonal organ is a group of mechanosensory neurons found in an insect leg that detects the movements and the position of the femur/tibia joint. It is thought to function as a proprioceptor that is critical for precise control of leg position by sending the information regarding the femur/tibia joint to the motor circuits in the ventral nerve cord and the brain
References
- ↑ Comstock, JH. An Introduction to Entomology, 1920
- ↑ The Insects: An Outline of Entomology, P. J. Gullan, Peter Cranston.
- ↑ cf. far field pressure gradients, as opposed to pure displacement sensations or near field acoustics
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