Some people can use ancient muscles to move their ears in small increments
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The “useless” muscles that make some people can move their ears in small increments are actually activated when we are nervous to hear something.
Our ape’s ancestors have lost their ability to pivot their ears when they branched from monkeys a million years ago, but some of the muscles and brain neurons that support this characteristics remain in today’s humans. I am.
Many scientists assume that even if these so -called primary muscles enable ear swing, they are outdated. However, in 2020, Daniel Strauss and his colleagues at Surland University in Germany found that they were actually activated according to the sound from different directions, and when people were listening. I urged me to be wondering if it would happen.
To explore this, researchers have won 20 people with a typical hearing from the age of 22 to 37 to undertake three difficult hearing tests. They focused on a 5 -minute audio -book clip narrated by women’s voices, and the skin sensor measured the electrical activity of the anoperous muscle.
In a simple test, researchers quietly regenerated podcasts where the male voice was hosted at the same time as the audiobook. In the middle difficult task, they added a quiet clip of a woman’s voice to the setup, just like an audiobook. In the most difficult test, both background clips have become larger.
Researchers have discovered that the largest nurealus muscle is the most active in the difficult test. “It’s surprising to see this forgotten muscles working hard when listening to the hard work,” Strausus says.
The team did not evaluate whether this muscle was activated by supporting the ability of the participants concentrated on the main audiobook, but when the activity is measured, an objective way to evaluate the listening effort is an objective method. Can be provided. This says that this could help the development of a better hearing aid aimed at minimizing listening tensions.
But first, people of various ages are involved and large -scale studies with various hearing abilities need to verify the results, says Yushu Kakumak, the University of Otago, New Zealand. The team did not explain the movement or expression of the ears. He says this can affect the activity of the anoperous muscle.
Strauss wants to deal with some of these points in the future. “To understand the” nerve fossil “of our brain and how to use it, we need more research,” he says.
topic:
(Tagstotrasslate) Anatomy
