Organ of Corti (magnified section)
Organum spirale
Sensory (eye & ear)OrgansWhole body
- What it is
- A slice through the cochlear duct magnified about 500 times, floating beside the left ear. The faint frame shows the boundaries of the scala media: the floor, the outer wall (stria vascularis) and the sloping Reissner's membrane above. On the basilar membrane sits the organ of Corti with its inner and outer hair cells, pillar cells, the tectorial membrane and the nerve fibres leaving toward the modiolus.
- Function
- The site where mechanical vibration is converted into nerve impulses.
- Size
- Real organ of Corti about 0.1-0.2 mm wide and 35 mm long along the spiral; here about 50 mm wide.
- Clinical note
- Alfonso Corti described it in 1851; the hair cells number only about 15,500 per ear and do not regenerate in mammals.