Cochlea Cochlea The cochlea is the part of the inner ear involved in hearing. It is a spiral-shaped cavity in the bony labyrinth, in humans making 2 turns(full) and a 3/4(3 quarters) turn around its axis, the modiolus. A core component of the cochlea is the Organ of Corti, the sensory organ of hearing, which is distributed along the partition separating fluid chambers in the coiled tapered tube of the cochlea. The name cochlea derives . The cochlea (plural is cochleae) is a spiralled, hollow, conical chamber of bone, in which waves propagate from the "base" (near the middle ear and
Cochlea are important in some types of tests for hearing impairment, since they are present when the cochlea is working well, and less so when it is suffering from loss of OHC activity. Gap-junction proteins, called connexins, expressed in the cochlea play an important role in auditory functioning. Mutations in gap-junction genes have been found to cause syndromic and nonsyndromic deafness. Certain connexins, including connexin 30 and connexin 26, are prevalent in the two distinct gap-junction systems found in the cochlea. The epithelial-cell gap-junction network couples non-sensory epithelial cells, while the connective-tissue gap-junction network couples connective-tissue cells. Gap-junction channels recycle potassium