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The Active Traveling Wave in the Cochlea
A sound stimulus entering the inner ear excites a deformation of the basilar
membrane which travels along the cochlea towards the apex. It is well
established that this wave-like disturbance is amplified by an active system.
Recently, it has been proposed that the active system consists of a set of
self-tuned critical oscillators which automatically operate at an oscillatory
instability. Here, we show how the concepts of a traveling wave and of
self-tuned critical oscillators can be combined to describe the nonlinear wave
in the cochlea.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure