The cochlea of the inner ear presents severe difficulties for measurement and
computation, and controversy exists on virtually every issue. However, the first in
vivo measurement of the spatial distribution of elastic response for a fixed frequency
is now available. This work compares experimental results and those from
calculations with a three-dimensional model. This is a standard model that consists
of a long, fluid-filled box with a partition, a portion of which is the elastic
BM (basilar membrane). The BM velocity at a fixed point as a function
of frequency and the spatial response for a fixed frequency are calculated.
The model includes the three-dimensional viscous fluid and the pectinate
zone of the elastic orthotropic BM with the gerbil dimensional and material
property variation along its length. The radial BM thickness variation is,
however, replaced by an equivalent constant thickness. The active process is
represented by adding the motility of the OHCs (outer hair cells) to the
passive model with a feed-forward approximation of the organ of Corti (OC).
Asymptotic and numerical methods combined with Fourier series expansions
are used to provide a fast and efficient iterative procedure that requires
about one second on a desktop computer for obtaining the BM response for a
given frequency. Our three-dimensional model results show the following
agreement with the experimental measurements in various situations: (i) for
map of place of maximum response to frequency — excellent; (ii) for the
response at a fixed point as a function of frequency — excellent for amplitude,
poor for phase; (iii) for the spatial distribution for fixed frequency — fair for
amplitude and excellent for phase. The discrepancies in (ii) and (iii) remain to be
clarified.