Reading Makes You Carsick Because Your Brain Thinks It's Being Poisoned

(Photo: Toni Barth/EyeEm) By Melissa Dahl There are those who can happily while away a long road trip with the companionship of a good book, their minds flying away with the plot even as their bodies remain motionless in the passenger seat of a car plowing along a freeway. And then there are those -- well, there are those for whom this all sounds very nice in theory but who know that in reality it would probably result in nausea at best, actual vomit at worst. Carsickness is an annoying quirk of human physiology, but it's one that has more to do with your "idiot brain" than you'd probably think, as neuroscientist and author Dean Burnett explained yesterday in an interview with NPR's Fresh Air. Related: A Neuroscientist Explains Why You're Terrible With Names That's the title of Burnett's book -- Idiot Brain: What Your Head Is Really Up To -- which Science of Us excerpted earlier this week. Burnett is a refreshing sort of neuroscientist in that he does not seem to consider the brain with any particular reverence; if anything, he seems mildly impatient about its many ridiculous failings. Motion sickness is one of them. It's the job of the thalamus, he explained, to interpret all the sensory signals the body sends its way. Typically, when you're moving about, your muscles are in motion, your eyes are observing the distance you've covered, and, whether you know it or not, you're also relying on the "balance sensors" in your inner ears. These are "little tiny little tubes full...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news