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How Hearing Works
Your ears are complex organs that are responsible for hearing, as well as spatial location and balance. Hearing keeps you safe when you’re driving to work or playing with your grandchildren in the park, and it allows you to have intimate conversations with the people you love the most. When all parts of the ear work together, you’ll have clear hearing, but when the ear is damaged, you’ll experience hearing loss. So how exactly does the ear work?
The auditory system is extremely complex, and the journey that carries sound waves to your brain is intricate. First, the outer ear channels the sound waves around you towards the middle ear, and acts as a natural amplifier to help you hear and locate all the sounds around you.
Next, the sound waves vibrate against the ear drum, or middle ear, causing three little bones in the middle ear to vibrate. This vibration causes movement in the fluid-filled inner ear, called the cochlea. As this fluid moves, tiny hair cells in the inner ear also move. These cells translate this movement into electrical signals, and send those signals to the brain, where the auditory center in your brain translates these signals so that you can hear.
Hearing Loss FAQs
Taking a Closer Look at the Ears
The Outer Ear
The Middle Ear
The Inner Ear
Hearing Loss in the Inner Ear
The most common kind of hearing loss is known as sensorineural hearing loss, and it’s the result of damage to the delicate cells in the inner ear. When these hair cells are damaged, they aren’t able to sense the vibrations in the cochlea, or transmit these sounds to your brain. You’ll experience hearing loss in certain frequencies, depending on which hair cells have been destroyed. Sadly, once these cells are damaged, they don’t heal, and your hearing loss will be permanent. Sensorineural hearing loss is the result of exposure to loud noises, or happens as part of the normal aging process, as your ears experience the wear and tear of every-day life.
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