For the first time in the world, a group of Professor Jun Sato (Visiting Professor, Aichi Medical University) of Chubu University discovered that the vestibular organs of the inner ear of mice have a place and ability to sense changes in pressure.
It is known that there are organs that sense atmospheric pressure in the ears of birds, and it is thought that birds are acting in anticipation of climate change such as their flying altitude and whether it will rain. There is.
Even for us humans, it is called "meteoropathy" or "weather pain" that the weather changes, such as "when it rains, old wounds hurt," "headaches," and "feeling depressed." Known from.The mechanism is not clear, but it has been suggested that it may feel a change in barometric pressure like other animals.
This time, the research group puts the mouse in a device that can artificially change the atmospheric pressure, exposes it to a minute low pressure corresponding to a change in the weather for a certain period of time, then removes the brain and relays sensory information from the vestibular organ of the inner ear. An experiment was conducted to observe the activity of vestibular nuclei cells.Then, the excitement of nerve cells was confirmed in the upper vestibular nuclei cells, which mainly collect information from the semicircular canals.On the other hand, no changes were observed in nerve nucleus cells that collect sensory information from other sites or in mice that were not given changes in atmospheric pressure.This revealed that the semicircular canals of the inner ear, which were thought to feel only a sense of balance, have the ability to sense changes in barometric pressure.
From the results of this research, even in us humans, the vestibular organs of the inner ear sense subtle changes in atmospheric pressure due to the collapse of the weather, and as a result of that information being transmitted to the brain, we are in trouble such as old injuries, pain of chronic illness, dizziness and depression. Was suggested to occur.
In the future, the research group hopes to clarify the mechanism by which the inner ear senses changes in atmospheric pressure, and then to establish effective treatments for meteoropathy and weather pain.
Paper information:[PLOS ONE] Lowering barometric pressure induces neuronal activation in the superior vestibular nucleus in mice
