Richard R. Fay

Clinical Aspects of Hearing

This text presents pivotal developments in our knowledge of the biological processes which result in hearing, and their application to the understanding of normal and abnormal hearing in humans. The book contains information of interest to both scientists and clinicians.

Auditory trauma, protection, and repair

Auditory Pathology: When Hearing is Out of Balance.- Genetics of Hearing Loss.- Cochlear Homeostasis and Homeostatic Disorders.- Tinnitus: Theories Mechanisms and Treatments.- Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease.- Age-Related Hearing Loss and Its Cellular and Molecular Bases.- Patterns and Mechanisms of Noise-Induced Cochlear Pathology.- Drug-Induced Hearing Loss.- Central Consequences of Cochlear Trauma.- Cell Death and Cochlear Protection.- Emerging Strategies for Restoring the Cochlea.

Vertebrate sound production and acoustic communication

Vocal production is a central topic in biological and evolutionary approaches to animal communication, linking physics, physiology, and anatomy, on the one hand, with perception, neural processing, and evolution of communication signals, on the other. Understanding of vertebrate vocal production has increased greatly in the last two decades, mainly by building on an understanding of the physics and physiology of human vocal production initially developed by speech scientists. There is an increasing feeling among specialists in bioacoustics that this discipline has entered a new scientifi c era where the broad theoretical and physical underpinnings of vocal production, in a wide variety of vertebrate species, are solid and well-understood. Unfortunately, the origins of this understanding in speech science pose a problem for many nonspecialists, as the founding texts are highly technical and mathematical treatments written by and for engineers. This chapter, like the volume of which it is part, aims to provide a nontechnical introduction and overview of vertebrate vocal production written by and for biologists interested in vocal communication. The chapter provides a historical overview of the origins of two critical bodies of theory, the source-fi lter theory of vocal production and the myo-elastic aerodynamic theory of the voice source, and details how these theories were gradually applied to nonhuman animal vocalizations. The chapter ends with a summary of the rest of the chapters in the volume.

Synaptic mechanisms in the auditory system

Introduction and overview.- Neuronal response properties and voltage-gated ion channels.- The hair cell synapse.- The endbulbs of Held.- The calyces of Held.- Synaptic coincidence detection.- Synaptic inhibition in the auditory system.- Modulatory mechanisms for controlling auditory processing.- Long-term plasticity in the auditory system.

Primate Hearing and Communication

The diverse and well-studied order Primates serves as an excellent model for understanding the evolution of acoustic communication among mammals. Over the past 60 million years, primates have evolved into more than 300 extant species that range from nocturnal to diurnal, arboreal to terrestrial, and solitary to groups of thousands, and they range in body mass from the 30-g pygmy mouse lemur (Microcebus myoxinus) to the 175-kg eastern lowland gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri). Nonhuman primates vary in their auditory sensitivity and perceptual capabilities and emit a wide range of often complex vocalizations. Some aspects of primate audition and vocalizations have been related to each other and/or phylogeny, anatomy, and ecology, but many aspects have yet to be fully understood. The integration of anatomical and behavioral data on acoustic communication, and the correlates thereof, have significant potential for reconstructing behavior in the fossil record, including that of humans. This volume presents a comprehensive review of nonhuman primate audition and vocal communication to bridge these closely related topics that are often addressed separately. The first section of the book is a discussion of primate sound production, reception, and perception, as well as habitat acoustics in the environmental settings occupied by primates in the wild. The second section focuses on vocal communication in extant primates, including consideration of spectral analyses of primate calls and the evolutionary relationships among hearing, vocal communication, and human language. The goal for this comprehensive approach is to provide new insights into these related topics.