Getting to Know your hair cells

Hair cells play a critical role in our hearing.

When they are damaged, doctors say they act like blades of grass. When someone walks on grass, the blades initially lie down and then bounce back up. But if you keep walking the same path repeatedly, the grass stays down. Hair cells are the same way. If you send sound waves from the outside without giving the cells time to recover, you can rip them out with excessive noise. Hair cells do not grow back.