Vestibular apparatus: dynamic model of the semicircular canals

The vestibular apparatus plays a fundamental role in equilibrioception. It is located in the inner ear and it substantially comprises otoliths, which indicate linear acceleration, and semicircular canals, which detect rotational acceleration. In this paper models of different complexity of the semicircular canals are reported and discussed: a monocanal hydro-elastic model and a three-canals model, in which interactions between canals are considered. Different trends are obtained by implementing the two models in a Matlab environment. The numerical results of the monocanal model are compared with the classical torsion-pendulum model and with literature data; while, for the three-canals model, responses to angular velocity directed parallel to the physiological axes are reported.