Responses of pigeon vestibular nerve fibers to sound and vibration with audiofrequencies.
Single unit recordings were made from the nerve branch innervating the crista in the horizontal semicircular canal of a pigeon. The vestibular organ was either stimulated with sound through the ear canal or with a vibrator in contact with the membraneous ampulla roof. Units responding to sound or vibration showed tuning with a best frequency of approximately 0.7 kHz. The average low-frequency slope of the tuning curves is--16 dB/oct; the average high-frequency slope 20 dB/oct. The threshold amplitude for vibrator stimulation is 30 nm. This value comes close to the calculated threshold value for cupula deflection in the human semicircular canal.
D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D010856:Columbidae / Q000502:physiology*; D009412:Nerve Fibers / Q000502:physiology*; D012665:Semicircular Canals / Q000294:innervation; D014725:Vestibular Nerve / Q000502:physiology*; D014732:Vibration