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87th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery

04.05. - 07.05.2016, Düsseldorf

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Proposal for a new model of the macula utriculi

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German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. 87th Annual Meeting of the German Society of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology, Head and Neck Surgery. Düsseldorf, 04.-07.05.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. Doc16hno22

doi: 10.3205/16hno22, urn:nbn:de:0183-16hno222

Published: September 7, 2016

© 2016 Koch.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Outline

Text

Measuring of utricular dysfunction with different methods leads to inconsistent evidence based results on the present model of the macula utriculi.

Based on recent literature a new model of the macula utriculi is presented.

Essential point of the new idea is the role of the otoliths as a mass element: every single otolith and his accompanied hair cell are representing a small accelerometer according to a technical spring-mass system. This unit represents the smallest subunit of the whole utricular acceleration-sensor.

The model dissolves the inconsistent results of different measuring methods and leads to a more refined idea of dysfunctions of the macula utriculi.

It also consistently explains, why otoliths with different sizes are present on the normal macula utriculi.