Elastic Properties Of The Tectorial Membrane

盖膜（TM）是覆盖在哺乳动物耳蜗Corti器上的胶原性组织膜。据信，TM在统称为皮质放大器的主动机制中起着核心作用。它的作用很可能是机械过滤器，因此，了解其机械性能对于了解其在健康和疾病中的作用是必要的。在这里，我们解剖新鲜的TM的豚鼠和小鼠，并制定协议，将这些膜刚性基板。原子力显微镜是用来收集力距离数据，我们用它们来提取弹性模量和可能的各向异性特性的膜材料。这些数据将用于开发膜的真实机械模型，然后将其整合到整个耳蜗模型中，以研究其滤波器特性。正常和基因改变的动物模拟各种听觉缺陷正在研究中。

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.