The organ of Corti is a thin layer of cells in the snail-shaped cochlea of the inner ear. The mechanical properties of the cochlea separate sounds into different frequencies and help us perceive the pitch of sound. This image shows a short stretch of inner hair cells (green) within the Organ of Corti, which are responsible for converting sound vibration into a neural code at their specialized "ribbon synapses" (magenta). This code is then transmitted to the brain via the auditory nerve. Technical details: Maximum intensity projection of a multicolor confocal image stack, subsequently passed through a Kuwahara filter for artistic rendition.

Dr Lam is conducting postdoctoral research in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.