Cochlear Fluid Space Areas, Lengths and Volumes

Fluid Spaces extracted from an MR scan of a Human Cochlea

The human cochlea is much larger than most experimental animals. As a result, MR images of the human cochlea do not reliably identify Reissner's membrane. The combined compartments of scala vestibuli and the endolymphatic space have therefore been summarized

Fluid Volumes Summary for the Human

	Length (mm)	Volume (ul)
Scala Vestibuli +     Endolymph   (n=1)	26.08	22.18
Endolymphatic     Space	Not Available	Not Available
Scala Tympani   (n=1)	28.46	29.22

Scala Area as a function of distance

The Area / Distance data can be downloaded by clicking here

These data are made available for calculation purposes. In this file, the volume attributed above to scala vestibuli + endolymphatic space have been divided based on the relative areas of scala vestibuli and the endolymphatic space seen histologically. The endolymphatic space was calculated as 12% and scala vestibuli was calculated as 88% of the combined endolymphatic+SV space. These data should be viewed as a "best guess" until more quantitative findings become available. The file gives scala area measurements in square mm for each 0.1 mm segment of the fluid space. Note that the fluid spaces are of different lengths and that the columns for shorter scalae are padded to the end with zeros.