Figure 2.

Simplified cartoons representing: (A) structure of the ear; (B) longitudinal projection of the cochlea in its uncoiled form; (C) cochlear transverse section and interior and interior structures; (D) 2-D model of the uncoiled cochlea with SV and SM united in one single chamber; (E) surface view of the basilar membrane with a schematic representation of the collagen fibers running from the neural to the abneural edge; wave propagation in the cochlea (F) for small wavelength, λ<<h. In this case the trajectories of liquid particles are circular and their amplitudes decay exponentially away from the BM. Each arrow’s head denotes the position of a particle at a given time; (G) when λ>>h and the motion occurs predominantly in the longitudinal direction (readapted from Reichenbach and Hudspeth, 2014).