• Question: Why do you feel dizzy when you spin?

    Asked by rstewart to Adam, Chris, Eleanor, Sinead on 20 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Sinead Cullen

      Sinead Cullen answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hi,
      So when I was studying Neuroscience we studied a lot about hearing and balance. So our ears do another really important job as well as well as making us hear. They also help us to balance, and the inner ear especially plays a huge role in this.

      The inner parts are open spaces which are filled with filled with fluid. The inside walls of the spaces are covered with tiny hairs. Each hair is connected to a nerve cell that carries signals to the brain. When the head moves, the fluid moves around and the movements of this fluid bends the hairs. As each hair bends, it makes its nerve cell send a signal, telling the brain about that movement.

      When we spin around, the fluid starts spinning, too. That gives us the sensation of spinning. When we stop, the fluid keeps moving (and bending tiny hairs and signaling the brain). That may make us feel that we are spinning backward. We call that “feeling dizzy.”

      Hope this helps 🙂

    • Photo: Eleanor Holmes

      Eleanor Holmes answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Some people develop problems with the fluid in their ears and feel dizzy all the time.

      Both my uncle and my mother get very dizzy when there are really loud noises around them. Or a lot of different noises, like if you try to ask them something while there is music playing.

      I really hope I don’t have the same thing happen to me. I don’t really like feeling dizzy.

    • Photo: Adam Murphy

      Adam Murphy answered on 20 Nov 2013:

      Hey! Cool question!

      Those fluid filled tubes are called your Semicircular Canals. There’s three of them and they look really weird!

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicircular_canal

      Each one of the three measures spinning a different direction, one measures spinning like a top, one spinning like a somersault and one like a cartwheel.

      So when the fluid in them start to slosh around your brain gets confused, which tends to mean you start to feel sick!

      Sometimes when you get sick it can mess with what’s going on in your ear and that’s why you get dizzy when you have the flu!

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