The Vestibular System
The vestibular system helps a person maintain: balance, visual fixation, posture, and lower muscular control.
There are six receptor organs located in the inner ear: cochlea, utricle, saccule, and the lateral, anterior, and posterior semicircular canals. The cochlea is a sensory organ with the primary purpose to aid in hearing. The utricle and saccule are sensors for detecting angular or linear acceleration, and the three semicircular canals detect head rotation.
Located within the membranous labyrinthine walls of the vestibular system are approximately 67,000 hair cells in total. This includes ~7,000 hair cells from each of the semicircular canals located within the crista ampullaris, ~30,000 hair cells from the utricle, and ~16,000 hair cells from the saccule. Each hair cell has about 70 stereocilia (short rod-like hair cells) and one kinocilium (long hair cell).
Read more about this topic: Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential
Famous quotes containing the word system:
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)