HSC 350 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Vestibular Nerve, Otolith, Vestibular System
Document Summary
The vestibular system has important sensory functions, contributing to the perception of self- motion, head position, and spatial orientation relative to gravity. It also serves important motor functions, helping to stabilize gaze, head, and posture. An elaborate set of interconnected chambers that use specialized set of sensory cells hair cells to transduce physical motion into neural impulses. Provide the basis for vestibular function. located in the utricle and saccule and in the ampullae, located at the base of the semicircular canals. Movement of the stereocilia in the direction away from the kinocilium closes the channels, hyperpolarizing the hair cell and thus reducing vestibular nerve activity. In a given semicircular canal, the hair cells in the ampulla are all polarized in the same direction. Both of these organs contain a sensory epithelium, the macula, which consists of hair cells and associated supporting cells.
