• Question: Why do we get vertigo?

    Asked by 387rhed44 to Nicholas on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Hey,

      Our brains get a lot of signals to help us work out where our bodies are:
      our eyes can look and tell us what we see
      our muscles and skeleton also know if we’re standing up or leaning
      and there are also little systems in our ears that are used to tell our brains if our head is tilting or spinning and help us balance.

      The system in the ear works by sensing the sloshing around of fluid inside little tubes in the ear. If you spin around for long enough, the fluid in these tubes will keep spinning even after you’ve stopped. The brain becomes confused because it knows you’re not still spinning, but these tubes say you are so you feel dizzy – this is vertigo!

      Vertigo is usually caused when these signals from your ear disagree with what your eyes and muscles are saying.

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