The Ear

Come inside the ear! Here you can get lost in the semicircular canals, play with bones that look like hammers, and study tissues that help you to balance.

The ear consists of the outer ear, middle ear and inner ear. These organs need to send signals to the brain to allow us to hear. The ear canal transmits sound waves from the outer ear to the eardrum. When the sound waves reach the middle ear, the eardrum starts to vibrate and the tiniest bones in the body start to move. These are the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup.

The amplified sound waves reach the oval window of the inner ear. They generate waves in the liquid in the cochlea. The inside of the cochlea is covered in hair cells that undulate in harmony with the waves in the cochlea. These movements are transformed into electrical impulses that are transmitted via the auditory nerve to the brain. The information is processed in the auditory centre of the brain, and this is how we perceive sound. The brain's auditory centre is located in the temporal lobe.

You can test your own hearing in the Hearing Test experiment!