Q.Which structure in the ear converts pressure waves to action potentials?

The ear serves two senses — hearing and equilibrium — from three anatomical regions. The external ear (pinna, auditory meatus, tympanic membrane) collects sound and channels it to the eardrum; the middle ear (malleus, incus, stapes, linked to the throat by the Eustachian tube) mechanically amplifies the vibration roughly 20-fold onto the oval window; the inner ear converts this into pressure waves in the perilymph that move the basilar membrane and organ of Corti, bending hair-cell stereocilia and generating action potentials carried to the brain by the cochlear nerve. Hearing loss is classed as conductive deafness (a mechanical block — earwax, ruptured eardrum, middle-ear infection, restricted ossicles) or sensory-neural deafness (a defect in the organ of Corti, auditory nerve or auditory pathway …