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Fig. 9. The proposed effect of variation in cupular height on the dynamic range of
the lateral line system. (A) A region of the body encompassing three
neuromasts is focused on (box) for a comparison of responses for a lateral
line with cupulae of (Bii,Cii) variable height and (Bi,Ci) uniform height.
(Bi,Bii) An oscillatory stimulus (blue arrow) causes greater deflection in
neuromasts with taller cupulae. (Cii) The tallest and most sensitive neuromast
(blue line) is anticipated to produce a transducer potential that saturates at
a relatively low flow velocity. The gray lines indicate sensitivity that is
dominated by the mechanics of the cupula. In contrast to the tallest cupula,
the shortest cupula (green line) is less sensitive, but encodes flow at higher
velocity. Therefore, the dynamic range of the entire system (gray region) is
large compared with that of a lateral line system composed of neuromasts with
uniform morphology (Ci). (Bi,Ci) Neuromasts having similar cupular height will
deflect to the same degree and produce similar transducer potentials. As a
consequence, the dynamic range for the system will be relatively narrow.
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