Stereocilia Tip-Link Gating Spring

Cochlear hair cells convert mechanical motion into electricity through a single elegant mechanism: the tip link. This simulator renders a staircase bundle of stereocilia, deflects it under your control, and computes the tip-link tension, the Boltzmann open probability of the mechanotransduction channels it gates, and the resulting receptor current — all from the same gating-spring equations used in cochlear biophysics. A slow adaptation motor continuously resets the channels' operating point, reproducing the characteristic overshoot-and-relax response real hair cells show to a sustained deflection.