//////////////////EDGE-When a human being runs, we have a tiny, little neck that emerges from
the center of the base of our skull, and it's very short in the middle.
We're basically like pogo sticks. We've lost, by becoming bipeds, all
those mechanisms available to quadrupeds to keep their heads still. It
turns out that we've evolved other special mechanisms to keep our heads
still. One of them, the semicircular canals (the vestibular system in
our heads) are especially enlarged, and give us enormous sensitivity to
pitching forces, to pitching motions. The semicircular canals, the
vestibular system are organs of balance that essentially function as an
accelerometer. As your head pitches forward, as it does every time you
hit the ground when you run, your head wants to pitch forward. As it
pitches forward, the enlarged semicircular canals - these are the
anterior and posterior ones, for anybody who actually cares - are
especially large. That gives them greater gain in their sensitivity to
angular accelerations. Which then, through a three-neuron circuit to our
brain activates, without any conscious effort, the eye muscles that
actually then stabilize the gaze. So even when your eyes are closed and
you move your head, your eyes, the semicircular canals, through that
three-neuron system operates those muscles, keeping your gaze
stabilized. It's that fundamental a system.
/////////////////////LITERARY NEUROSCIENCE
/////////////////////CHANCE FAVOURS THE PREPARED
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//////////////////////////YC RIP 80
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/////////////////////LITERARY NEUROSCIENCE
/////////////////////CHANCE FAVOURS THE PREPARED
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"The moral secret of capitalism is not that we are free to choose, but that we are forced to choose"
//////////////////////////YC RIP 80
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