Comment on 'A Wave Traveling over a Hopf Instability Shapes the Cochlear Tuning Curve'

Abstract

Since the seminal work by H.L.F. Helmholtz in 1863, to understand the basic principles of hearing has been a great, but still unresolved, challenge for physicists. Some time ago, it has been pointed out (Egu\'ıluz et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5232, 2000) that the generic mathematical properties of nonlinear oscillators undergoing a Hopf bifurcation account for the salient characteristics of hearing. Recently, M.O. Magnasco proposed a model of the cochlea (Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 058101, 2003), which employs Hopf-type instabilities for cochlear amplification. While this model reproduces the input-output behaviour of the cochlea to some extent, the generated model responses deviate significantly from physiological measurements. The reason for the discrepancies between model and experiment are due to the critical choice of the Hopf control parameter close to the bifurcation point ($μ= 0$). The question whether the bifurcation parameter has to be chosen critically or subcritically ($μ< 0$), is central, and has become the subject of a scientific debate.In this contribution, we argue that, for sustained input signals, the control parameter will assume a subcritical value. This leads to model results that are in close agreement with reported experimental data.