Elastic Properties Of The Tectorial Membrane

毡膜（TM）是一种覆盖在哺乳动物耳蜗皮层上的胶原组织膜。据信，颞叶在被称为耳蜗放大器的主动机制中起着核心作用。它的作用很可能是一个机械过滤器，因此，了解它的机械特性对于理解它在健康和疾病中的作用是必要的。在这里，我们解剖了来自豚鼠和小鼠的新鲜TM，并制定了将这些膜附着在刚性底物上的方案。利用原子力显微镜收集力距数据，提取膜材料的弹性模量和可能的各向异性特征。这些数据将用于建立真实的膜力学模型，然后将其集成到整个耳蜗模型中，以研究其过滤特性。研究人员正在研究正常动物和转基因动物模拟各种听觉缺陷的方法。

The tectorial membrane (TM) is a collageneous tissue membrane overlying the organ of Corti in the mammalian cochlea. It is believed that the TM plays a central role in the active mechanism collectively known as the Cochlear Amplifier. Its role is most likely that of a mechanical filter and, therefore, knowledge of its mechanical properties is necessary for understanding its role in health and disease. Here we dissect fresh TM's from guinea pigs and mice and develop the protocol for attaching these membranes to rigid substrates. The atomic force microscope is used to collect force-distance data and we use them to extract elastic moduli and possibly anisotropy characteristics for the membrane material. These data will be used to develop realistic mechanical models of the membrane in-situ, which will then be integrated into whole cochlea models to investigate its filter characteristics. Both normal and genetically altered animals modeling various auditory deficiencies are being studied.