Question

AUDITION
*What are the main features of sound waves and how do they related to perception? (hint: loudness/amplitude is one of them...)
*What is the role of the ossicles in the auditory system?
*How does transduction happen in the hair cells, and how does the brain interpret frequency from this information?
*What do we mean by there being tonotopic maps in the cochlea? In the auditory cortex?
*What is the sequence of brain areas that sound is processed through (in order)? (e.g., cochlear nuclei, superior olive, etc.)

SOMATOSENSATION

*Can you name the 3 major kinds of somatosensory receptors?
*What 2 pathways (through various brain areas) do the receptors use to transmit their responses to the brain?
*Where is primary somatosensory cortex located, and what are the features of its homonculus?
*How can somatosensory receptive fields change with experience (neuroplasticity)?
*Why do people with phantom limb experience pain in their missing limb? What kinds of procedures can help with their pain?

Answer 1

AUDITION

* The main features of sound waves are:

• Amplitude of sound waves codes for the loudness of a stimulus.
• The pitch of stimulus is coded for the frequency of a sound wave.
• The quality of sound wave is guaged by the complexity of sound waves the timbre.

​*. The ossicles transmit vibration from tympanic membrane to the oval window or the cochlea.

*. When the sound waves produce fluid waves be inside the cochlea ,the hair cells in the basil membrane flexes , bending the stereocilia that attach to the tectorial membrane.Thus action potential occurs in the hair cell,and auditory information travels along the neural ending of the bipolar neurons of the hair cells to the brain.

* The spatial representation of sound frequency that occur in each hair cell of cochlea is the tenotopic maps in the cochlea,and,the spatial representation of sound frequency in each parallel auditory pathways of auditory system in the auditory cortex is the tenotopic maps in the auditory cortex.

* The sequence is

Cochlear nucleus-- trapezoid body -- superior olivary complex-- lateral lamnicus--- inferior collicute-- medial geniculate nucleus -- primary auditory cortex.

(Please ask the next part separately as the number of questions have exceeded the limit.)