Oval window

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Oval window" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Oval window
Middle ear, with oval window at right.
Right osseous labyrinth. Lateral view (label is vestibular fenestra — black circle near center)
Details
Identifiers
Latin	fenestra vestibuli, fenestra ovalis
MeSH	D010046
TA98	A15.3.02.009
TA2	6897
FMA	56913
Anatomical terminology [edit on Wikidata]

The oval window (or fenestra vestibuli or fenestra ovalis) is a connective tissue membrane-covered opening from the middle ear to the cochlea of the inner ear.

Vibrations that contact the tympanic membrane travel through the three ossicles and into the inner ear. The oval window is the intersection of the middle ear with the inner ear and is directly contacted by the stapes; by the time vibrations reach the oval window, they have been reduced in amplitude and increased in pressure due to the lever action of the ossicle bones. This is not an amplification function; rather, an impedance-matching function, allowing sound to be transferred from air (outer ear) to liquid (cochlea).

It is a reniform (kidney-shaped) opening leading from the tympanic cavity into the vestibule of the inner ear; its long diameter is horizontal and its convex border is upward. It is occupied by the base of the stapes, the circumference of which is fixed by the annular ligament to the margin of the foramen.