inner hair cell neurotransmitter release

[Frank Rattay]

Hello everybody !
We are a group from Vienna, Austria and we are working on a model
of the mechano-electrical transduction mechanism of auditory 
receptor cells.
Our main difficulties are modeling 
	the relation between the inner hair cell potential change
	and the release of neurotransmitter
and 
	and the release of neurotransmitter
	and the spinking pattern in the auditory nerve.

It would be great if someone gave us some hints and references 
to these problems.

Another question is the role of calcium in the auditory receptor
cell. It is interesting that small potential variations down to
0.1mV are estimated to lead to neurotransmitter release followed 
by an action potential in the primary auditory nerve.

Does someone have ideas how to model the coding mechanism of 
high frequency signals ?

Please send follow ups 
or answers to our email address:

frattay at email.tuwien.ac.at