Atlas of the Ear

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. The Middle Ear

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. The tympanic membrane

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 3-9

   3. The auditory ossicles

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 10-13

   4. The auditory ossicular chain

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 14-15

   5. The auditory muscles

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 16-20

   6. The mucous membrane of the middle ear

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 21-22

   7. The round window membrane

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 23-24

   8. The Eustachian tube

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 25-30

3. The Inner Ear and Vestibular Organs

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 31-31

      PDF

   2. The inner ear

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 32-35

   3. The otolithic organs

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 36-36

   4. The function of the otolithic organs

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 36-39

   5. The shape and composition of otoconia

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 40-47

   6. The otolithic membrane

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 48-53

   7. The formation area of the otoconia

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 54-61

   8. The absorption area of the otoconia

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 62-68

   9. The sensory cells

      • Yasuo Harada

      Pages 69-77

   10. The striola

       • Yasuo Harada

       Pages 78-79

   11. The sensory area of the macula

       • Yasuo Harada

       Pages 80-81

The physiology of the semicircular canals was my main research interest before I began to study their morphology. In 1966, by utilizing the isolated semicircular canal of the frog, I was able to show that cell activity in the horizontal semicircular canal has the opposite polarity to that in the vertical canals, which was the first physiological proof of Ewald's law. Several transmitting electron microscope (TEM) studies had already reported on the morphology of the semicircular canal cristae; however, my morphological work was motivated by a strong desire to see whether the morphological polarity accorded to the physio­ logical polarity. In 1968 I happened to see the paper written by Dr David Lim, one of my close friends. His findings concerning the vestibular morphology, when examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), fascinated me a great deal because of the three-dimensional quality of the micro­ graphs. This stimulated me to become involved in vestibular morphol­ ogy. In the beginning, however, I faced many problems with specimen preparation for SEM, and the first few years were spent simply solving technical problems, especially those of artifacts. Many of the figures in this book have been photographed with a JEOL JSM U-3 scanning electron microscope over a decade. The sharpness of these pictures still, I think, bears comparison to the defi­ nition of those taken by the more sophisticated SEM scopes currently available.

• cell
• cells
• ear
• electron microscope
• electron microscopy
• membrane
• microscope
• microscopy
• morphology
• muscle
• physiology
• population
• quality
• research
• scanning electron microscope

• Hiroshima University Medical School, Hiroshima, Japan

  Yasuo Harada

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