 Hey, everybody, Dr. O. In this video, we're going to cover the anatomy of the ear. So the ear can be broken down into three areas, the external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. So let's start with the external ear. You see that it's surrounded by the oracle or the pinna. This can protect the ear canal or the external acoustic canal. And also it's probably its major role is that it provides directional sensitivity. So the ears look kind of silly, but how sound waves bounce off of them as they're directed towards the ear tells us a lot about where a sound is coming from. So that's called directional sensitivity. So this, then we have the actual ear canal, which leads to your tympanic membranes. The tympanic membrane is your eardrum. It's this thin, delicate, semi-transparent flap of tissue that is what separates the external ear from the middle ear. The last thing here with the external ear would be the ceruminous glands. They produce cerumin or earwax, which slows the growth of microbes in the ear and also offers some protection of your eardrum there or your tympanic membrane. Now we have the middle ear. So the middle ear is also known as the tympanic cavity. The key things here would be your auditory ossicles, the malleus, incus, and stapes, which people often call the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. So you also are going to see another really important structure here, the eustachian tube. You're not hearing that term as much anymore. It's usually called the auditory tube or the pharyngeal tympanic tube. So I think eustachian's tube is still just fine, but we'll just call it the auditory tube. It's what connects the middle ear to your nasal pharynx there in the back of your throat. So the function of the malleus, incus, and stapes, your auditory ossicles or ear bones, they're levers. So they take the sound waves, strike the tympanic membrane. They're turned into mechanical movements. And the levers, the hammer, anvil, and stirrup, malleus, incus, and stapes, they're going to amplify those sounds if needed, but they also can diminish those sounds if they're too loud. So they play a role in how much energy reaches the inner ear. The job of the eustachian tube or auditory tube is to equalize the pressure between the middle ear and the back of your throat. Very important. Like if you're flying, you know, like when your ears won't pop, I have that problem. We kind of have hinky eustachian tubes in my family. A couple of family members even had to have surgery on it. So I know when I fly, generally I cannot get the pressure to equalize between my middle ear and my throat. And until it does, I usually have an earache or an earache in both ears. So not super fun. So that the equalization of pressure, very, very important. All right, then we have the actual inner ear. So inside the inner ear, we have what's called the membranous labyrinth, which is the chambers and tubes of this inner ear. Then the bony labyrinth is all the hard bony tissue that surrounds and protects them. So the three parts of the inner ear are going to be the vestibule, the semicircular canals, and the cochlea. So the vestibule, you don't say labeled here, but that's going to be where the saccule and the utricle are. So the saccule and utricle, their job is to tell your brain about sensations of gravity and linear acceleration. So we'll cover the functions in a separate video. So that's the vestibule, which houses the saccule and the utricle. The semicircular canals, that's going to be where your semicircular ducts are, and they respond to rotation of the head. So as your head rotates, the semicircular canals tell your brain about that movement so you can adjust posture, et cetera. So the vestibular complex as a whole would be what's in the vestibule there and the semicircular canals together. Then lastly, we have the cochlea. So inside the cochlea, you have this cochlear duct, and this is going to be where hearing occurs. So we'll cover the function of all those in the next videos. So that's the anatomy of the external ear, middle ear, and inner ear. I hope this helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.