Our ear has three sections – outer, middle and inner ear. Stapes in the middle ear is the smallest bone in the human body. A stirrup-shaped bone, it transmits sound vibrations from the incus, another tiny bone in the middle ear, to the oval window, a membrane covering the entrance to the cochlea in the inner ear.
The two branches of the stapes, known as the inferior and superior crus, convey sound vibrations to the bone’s flat base.
From there, the vibrations enter the inner ear, where they are processed into neural data to be transmitted to the brain via the cochlear and the auditory nerve.
If the stapes becomes damaged, such as from severe head trauma, a person may lose some or all of their ability to hear. Because the ossicles are a chain of bones, this also holds true for the incus and malleus.
Picture Credit : Google
