Link to Pubmed [PMID] – 30617058
Link to HAL – hal-02365401
Link to DOI – 10.1101/cshperspect.a033175
Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 2019 Dec; 9(12):
To provide a meaningful representation of the auditory landscape, mammalian cochlear hair cells are optimized to detect sounds over an incredibly broad range of frequencies and intensities with unparalleled accuracy. This ability is largely conferred by specialized ribbon synapses that continuously transmit acoustic information with high fidelity and sub-millisecond precision to the afferent dendrites of the spiral ganglion neurons. To achieve this extraordinary task, ribbon synapses employ a unique combination of molecules and mechanisms that are tailored to sounds of different frequencies. Here we review the current understanding of how the hair cell’s presynaptic machinery and its postsynaptic afferent connections are formed, how they mature, and how their function is adapted for an accurate perception of sound.