HSC 350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Semicircular Canals, Vestibular Nerve, Otolith
Document Summary
The vestibular system has important sensory functions, contributing to the perception of self-motion, head position, and spatial orientation relative to gravity. It also serves important motor functions, helping to stabilize gaze, head, and posture. An elaborate set of interconnected chambers that uses specialized set of sensory cells hair cells to transduce physical motion into neural impulses. In the cochlea, the motion is due to airborne sounds; in the labyrinth, the motions transduced arise from head movements, inertial effects due to gravity, and ground-borne vibrations. The labyrinth consists of; utricle and saccule (otolith organs) specialized primarily to respond to linear accelerations of the head and static head position relative to the gravitational axis semicircular canals. Specialized for responding to rotational accelerations of the head. Located in the utricle and saccule and in the ampullae, located at the base of the semicircular canals.
