Organ of Corti

In anatomy and physiology, the organ of Corti or spiral organ is the receptor organ for hearing, located in the cochlea of mammals. Structurally, the organ consists of a highly varied strip of epithelial cells, capable of transducing sensations of physical movement in the inner ear into neural encoding of sound. This process begins when external sound waves causes structures in the inner ear to vibrate, leading to the displacement of cochlear fluid and causing the movement of individual hair cells at the organ of Corti; hair cells in turn produce action potentials, which are electrochemical signals used by the nervous system.

Italian anatomist Alfonso Giacomo Gaspare Corti (1822–1876) discovered the organ of Corti in 1851. The structure evolved from the basilar papilla and is crucial for mechanotransduction in mammals.