cupula

…jellylike cap known as a cupula. The cupula is displaced by water movement, thus bending the hairs beneath it, resulting in activity in the nerve. In the inner ear of higher vertebrates there are three variants of this basic design, responsible for detecting the direction of gravity, angular rotation, and…

…into a jellylike substance (the cupula) that bends in response to water displacement. The cupula stands freely in the surrounding water, grows continuously (e.g., as a human fingernail), and wears away at the top. Sense organs of this type are distributed along definite lateral lines on the head and body…

…swelling (ampulla) that contains the cupula, a cluster of sensitive hairs embedded in a jellylike mound. As the head moves in the plane of a given canal, motions of the fluid deflect the cupula to produce nerve impulses. These travel through the brainstem to other brain and spinal centres that…

…from the crista into the cupula, a jellylike mass that surrounds the hair cells completely, separating them from the endolymph.

…exerting pressure that deflects the cupula in the opposite direction. This deflection stimulates the hair cells by bending their stereocilia in the opposite direction. German physiologist Friedrich Goltz formulated the “hydrostatic concept” in 1870 to explain the working of the semicircular canals. He postulated that the canals are stimulated by…

The deflection of the cupula excites the hair cells by bending the cilia atop them: deflection in one direction depolarizes the cells; deflection in the other direction hyperpolarizes them. Electron-microscopic studies have shown how this polarization occurs. The hair bundles in the cristae are oriented along the axis of…

…rises a gelatinous structure, the cupula, which extends to the roof of the ampulla immediately above it, dividing the interior of the ampulla into two approximately equal parts. Like the hair cells of the maculae, the hair cells of the cristae have hair bundles projecting from their apices. The kinocilium…

…rises a gelatinous structure, the cupula, which divides the interior of the ampulla into two approximately equal parts. The hair cells of the cristae have hair bundles projecting from their apices. The kinocilium and the longest stereocilia extend far up into the substance of the cupula, occupying fine parallel channels.…