Amplitude death state for hearing

Abstract

We propose amplitude death phenomenon as an underlying mechanism of auditory transduction. When non-identical auditory hair bundles are elastically coupled, their spontaneous oscillations can be quenched to form an amplitude death state. We show, in this state, the hair cells are quiet and ready to detect oscillatory stimulus with coupling-strength dependent amplification. Numerical demonstration of the mechanism suggests that the non-uniformity of coupled hair cells can contribute to noise-robust auditory transduction.