The ratio of elastic moduli of cochlear outer hair cells derived from osmotic experiments
Ratnanather, J.T., Zhi, M., Brownell, W.E. and Popel, A.S.
Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 99, No. 2, p. 1025-1028.
Outer hair cells (OHCs) were subjected to three different hypoosmotic challenges which induced shape changes in OHCs. The longitudinal and circumferential strains, e_z and e_c respectively, were extracted from a morphometric analysis of video images of the cells. A value of e_z/e_c = -0.72 was obtained and was found to be independent of the applied osmotic gradient. Using an elastic isotropic membrane model for the OHC lateral wall, the ratio of the elastic shear modulus, mu, to the elastic area expansion modulus, K, was calculated yielding a value of 0.054. We discuss the contribution of this ratio to OHC mechanics.