Auditory System

Auditory or hearing system processes how we hear, detect, localize, and understand sounds. It’s a complex sensory system with many parts — outer, middle, and inner ear and the central auditory nervous system (brainstem and brain) — all involved in the hearing process. Impaired or lost hearing can result from illness, disease, noise exposure, and aging. Also see Sensory System and Sensory Receptors. Steps in the auditory system:

• Sound waves travel through ear canal to eardrum and cause vibrations that travel from eardrum to ossicles (tiny bones in middle ear).
• Ossicles send vibrations to cochlea (spiral cavity in inner ear lined with cilia or tiny hair cells). Cilia vibrate and send messages to auditory nerve (connects ears to brain).
• Brain receives information and translates it into sound and hearing comes to life.