title: Mammalian cochlea as a physics guided evolution-optimized hearing sensor.
abstract: Nonlinear physics plays an essential role in hearing. We demonstrate on a mesoscopic description level that during the evolutionary perfection of the hearing sensor, nonlinear physics led to the unique design of the cochlea observed in mammals, and that this design requests as a consequence the perception of pitch. Our insight challenges the view that mostly genetics is responsible for the uniformity of the construction of the mammalian hearing sensor. Our analysis also suggests that scaleable and non-scaleable arrangements of nonlinear sound detectors may be at the origin of the differences between hearing sensors in amniotic lineages.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lorimer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Florian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gomez
authors.affiliation: Institute of Neuroinformatics and Institute of Computational Science, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Ruedi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stoop
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003051:Cochlea / Q000502:physiology*; D006309:Hearing; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology*