It’s all about your brain and your body working
together.
Most
people can stand up and walk across a room without giving it much thought. But
to do this, your
brain must get information from several complex systems in the body,
which work together to keep you balanced.
Exactly how the body keeps balance,
and what happens when these systems don’t work properly, might surprise you.
Here are some weird facts about your balance.
1.
Your inner ear plays an important role in balance.
Your ears
aren’t just important for hearing; they aid in balance as well. Several
structures in the inner ear, together called the vestibular system, send
signals to the brain that help you orient yourself and maintain balance. Two
structures, called the utricle and the saccule, monitor linear movements of
your head (from side to side and up and down), and also detect gravity,
according to the Mayo Clinic. Other structures, which form loops and contain
fluid, monitor the rotation of your head. [Balance
Exercises: Everything You Need to Know]
Many
balance problems stem from conditions that affect the inner ear. For example,
if calcium crystals inside the inner ear end up in the wrong place, it can
cause the
vestibular system to send signals to the brain that your head is
moving, when it’s actually still, causing you to feel dizzy.
2.
Your muscles, joints and even skin help with balance, too.
Sensory
receptors in your muscles, joints, ligaments and skin help tell your brain
where your body is in space — a sense called proprioception, according
to the Vestibular Disorders Association (VEDA). These receptors, such as
those on the bottom of your feet or along your back, are sensitive to pressure
or stretching sensations. Receptors in the neck can tell the brain which way
the head is turned, and receptors in the ankles can tell the brain how the body
is moving relative to the ground, VEDA says.
When a
police officer asks a driver to touch his or her nose as part of a sobriety
test, the officer is testing the driver’s proprioception.
People who are impaired by alcohol may fail the test because their brains have
difficulty determining the position of their limbs relative to their noses.
3.
Balance gets worse with age.
As we
age, we experience impairments in the three main systems that keep us in
balance: vision, the vestibular system and proprioception. These impairments,
combined with reduced muscle strength and flexibility, make older
adults more prone to falls. One-third of American adults over age 65
experience a fall each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
4.
Your big toe isn’t crucial for balance.
To avoid
being drafted into the Vietnam War, some young men deliberately amputated their
big toe because this injury would make them unfit for duty in the government’s
eyes. But the big toe by itself actually isn’t crucial for balance.
People
missing a big toe can still walk and run, although they will likely be slower
and have a shorter stride, according to
Scientific American. A 1988 study of people who had their big toe amputated
found that the patients showed changes in their gait and the forces their body
generated when walking. But the patients had “little or no disability” from the
loss of their big toe, the study
concluded.
5. You
can feel like you’re moving when you aren’t.
If you’ve
ever sat on a train, looked out the window and suddenly felt like your train
was moving when it wasn’t, you’ve experienced a phenomenon called “vection.”
This happens because something that takes up a large part of your visual field
has started to move. In the train example, what you actually saw was another
train start to move, making you feel as though your train were moving in the
opposite direction.
Vection
can cause disorientation, because your brain experiences a conflict between the
incoming sensory
information from different sources, according to VEDA. Your vision tells
you that you’re moving, but sensory receptors in your body tell you that you
aren’t moving (you don’t feel any vibrations from your train). However, extra
information from your vestibular system may override this conflict, VEDA says.
You might also find yourself looking out the other window, to figure out
whether you are really moving.
6.
Migraines can be linked with balance problems.
About 40
percent of people who have migraines also experience dizziness or balance
problems, which can accompany a migraine or occur at a totally separate time,
according to VEDA.
The
condition is known as migraine-associated vertigo. The cause of the condition
is not known, but it’s possible that migraines affect brain signaling and that
this, in turn, slows down the brain’s ability to interpret sensory information
from the eyes, inner ear and muscles, resulting in a feeling of dizziness, Dr.
Sujana Chandrasekhar, president of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head
and Neck Surgery, told
Live Science in a 2014 interview. Another theory is that the dizziness is
caused by the release of certain chemicals in the brain that affect the
vestibular system.
7.
Some people feel a rocking sensation for months after going on a boat.
It’s
common for people who’ve been on a boat to feel like they are still swaying and
bobbing even after they set foot on land again. This sensation usually
disappears within a few hours or days. But for some people, this sensation of
feeling like you’re still at sea lasts for months or years. Patients with these
symptoms are said to have “mal de debarquement syndrome.” [Here’s a
Giant List of the Strangest Medical Cases We’ve Covered]
It’s not
clear why some people develop mal de debarquement syndrome. But one hypothesis
is that people with this condition have changes in their brain metabolism and
brain activity that make it able to adapt to the unfamiliar movement of the
ocean when they’re at sea but unable to readapt once this movement has stopped,
according to VEDA.
Original
article on Live
Science.
Rachael
Rettner
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