The Ear’s Hidden Power
Your ears are a marvel of biology, influencing far more than we once thought. Here’s the science behind it:
Brain Link (Auditory cortical & subcortical pathways): Sound travels through subcortical areas that control attention, arousal, and emotion. The cochlea’s tonotopic map—where high pitches hit the base and low ones the apex—stays intact up to your cortex. Also, did you realize that 75% of information processed by your ear comes from the brain rather than being sent to it? This is through the inner ear’s outer hair cells, whose functions we are still figuring out, but are essential in us hearing extremely soft sounds and are thought to play a pivotal role in learning.
Body Link (Auricular vagus & homunculus): The outer ear (think: the part of the ear that’s visible from the outside) funnels sound towards the eardrum and helps us identify where sounds are coming from due to its shape, but did you know that all the organs of your body are represented on different parts of it? By stimulating certain areas, you can access various parts of the body and regulate certain conditions. Even more surprising, the vagus nerve—your body’s ‘rest and digest’ superhighway—is accessible through your ear canal and runs through the back of your eardrum. It is in fact, the only noninvasive way to access this crucial nerve, making the ear prime real estate for treatment of certain conditions.
Balance link (Vestibular System): The ear shares fluid and nerves with the vestibular system for balance. Whist we often think of them as two completely separate systems, they are in fact intricately linked and a change in one elicits a change in the other. It is in fact no coincidence that when we hear music, we intuitively start tapping our feet. It’s the link between our hearing and our balance! Not only that, the balance system doesn’t just keep us from falling over, it regulates our mastery of knowing where we are in space (proprioception) and our muscle tone.
Baby Link (Embryology): All the muscle, bones, tissue and organs that make up our body developed from four layers (called germ layers) which developed in the embryo – the ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm and neural crest. The middle ear is the only structure in the body which developed out of all of these layers. Furthermore, the audiovestibular system is the first sense to fully develop in the womb (completely formed by 4.5 months gestation) making the ear an organ like none other in its links to the rest of the body
Trainability: Why is all this good news? Because, other than being an anatomical wonder, the auditory system is incredibly trainable. Whilst damaged cells in your hearing organ do not regenerate, your auditory muscles, nerve, and cortex are plastic and do change with practise and exposure. They adapt with training, much like what happens when you learn a new language.