the.com/cochlea
a snail-shaped spiral that translates the entire universe into electricity for your brain.
means The spiral, fluid-filled chamber of the inner ear that converts sound vibrations into nerve signals your brain can interpret as hearing.
from From Latin cochlea, "snail shell" or "screw," itself borrowed from Greek kochlias, "snail with a spiral shell." Anatomists, looking at that tiny coiled tube curled like a snail at rest, simply named it after what it resembled — a habit of early dissectors who reached for the kitchen and the garden when describing the body's hidden parts.
- size
- smaller than a pea, fully grown at birth
- hair cells
- about 15,000, and they never regrow
- frequency map
- high notes at base, low notes at tip
- fluid powered
- sound rides waves through inner liquid
- name origin
- Greek for snail, kochlias
human cochlea — spiral structure in inner ear with ~16,000 hair cells that convert sound vibrations to nerve signals
cochlea implant — fda-approved device first successfully implanted in 1984 to restore hearing by stimulating auditory nerve directly