Volume 119, Issue 4, April 2006
Index of content:
- BIOACOUSTICS 
119(2006); http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2177570View Description Hide Description
This article presents both theoretical and experimental studies on the superharmonic generation and its imaging in biological tissues. A superharmonic component is defined as a summation of the third-, fourth-, and fifth-order harmonics. A superharmonic signal is produced using an -diam, planar piston source that is excited by eight-cycle, tone bursts. Axial and lateral field distributions of the superharmonic component and the second harmonic are first calculated based on the nonlinear KZK model and then compared with those experimentally determined at two different source pressures of 0.5 and . Results indicate that the amplitude of the superharmonic component can exceed that of the second harmonic, depending on the axial distance and the fundamental pressure amplitude. Also, the beamwidth of the superharmonic component is about 23% narrower than that of the second harmonic. Additional experiments are performed in vitro using liver and fatty tissues in transmission mode and produced two-dimensional images using the fundamental, the second harmonic, and the superharmonic signals. Although the clinical applicability of this work still needs to be assessed, these results indicate that the superharmonic image quality is better than that of the other two images.
119(2006); http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.2171839View Description Hide Description
Songbirds and parrots deafened as nestlings fail to develop normal vocalizations, while birds deafened as adults show a gradual deterioration in the quality and precision of vocal production. Beyond this, little is known about the effect of hearing loss on the perception of vocalizations. Here, we induced temporary hearing loss in budgerigars with kanamycin and tested several aspects of the hearing, including the perception of complex, species-specific vocalizations. The ability of these birds to discriminate among acoustically distinct vocalizations was not impaired but the ability to make fine-grain discriminations among acoustically similar vocalizations was affected, even weeks after the basilar papilla had been repopulated with new hair cells. Interestingly, these birds were initially unable to recognize previously familiar contact calls in a classification task—suggesting that previously familiar vocalizationssounded unfamiliar with new hair cells. Eventually, in spite of slightly elevated absolute thresholds, the performance of birds on discrimination and perceptual recognition of vocalizations tasks returned to original levels. Thus, even though vocalizations may initially sound different with new hair cells, there are only minimal long-term effects of temporary hearing loss on auditory perception, recognition of species-specific vocalizations, or other aspects of acoustic communication in these birds.