When you are a passenger in a car, unless you play co-pilot or chat, you can quickly get bored. We would then be tempted to pick up a book or read on our smartphone. And there… hello the headache or the urge to vomit! Neurologist Dean Burnett, author of the book Idiot Brain (the stupid brain, in VF) explained why we feel this car sickness, in a program on the American web radio Fresh Air, August 2, 2016.
When we move, signals are transmitted by the muscles and the inner ear to the brain and analyzed by the thalamus, which then transmits the information to other parts of the brain. Thus, we are aware of moving to the right, to the left, up, down... The problem is that when we are in a means of transport such as a car or plane, the muscles do not transmit any message of movement to the brain. , since we are not really moving. However, the inner ear is not fooled and is aware of the movement, and transmits the info. Except that for the brain, it is impossible to be still and moving at the same time. This creates a confusion of the senses that the brain interprets as a neurotoxin or… poison! The best way to get rid of the poison is to vomit.
Fortunately, not everyone gets motion sickness. Children are also more affected than adults, because their brains are still under construction. However, explains Dean Burnett, when reading, the risk of feeling bad is even greater. The reason ? If the brain is able to say "I'm driving so it's normal for things to move, everything is fine », when we concentrate on a page or a screen, the confusion of the senses is even more important:the inner ear feels the movement while the brain is concentrated on a fixed point (=no movement). So, if you already feel bad in the car in normal times, there is a good chance that reading will not help. Well, well... we'll have to find other things to do to keep busy!
