The cruel neuroscience of figure skating: how the spinner overcomes dizziness

A long-exposed photo shows Adam Ripon spinning on the ice during the figure skating team competition. Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty) When I wrote this article, I was sitting in an office chair-this chair can rotate. If I kick my leg hard on the floor again and again, it will turn very fast-not a figure skater, but fast enough for me to stop and try to stand up, and the whole world will turn over and threaten to throw me into my editing room-I don't think she will appreciate me. [Editor's note: This is correct] I tried it a few minutes ago. Although I typed them out, the entries in this article are still very strange.

It's not surprising, really. Every child will find out sooner or later that if they spin themselves hard enough, the whole world will turn upside down. But when it comes to excellent athletes, especially figure skaters, we can forget that their light and talented bodies are bound by physiological laws just like ours. [Can Olympic figure skaters break through the 5-lap obstacle? ]

When Mirai Nagasu throws three rotating shafts, Nathan Chen jumps into the air like a ballet and spins four times before landing, or Adam Ripon twists himself through a series of fluid shapes while spinning on a skateboard through long-term music, and their wet inner ears-the source of human motion sensors and dizziness-swing in a rotating chair like me (or yours, if you spin fast enough).

Facts have proved that Olympic figure skaters are more different from the rest of us than inner ears. Paul DiZio, a neuroscientist who studies balance, exercise and dizziness at brandeis University, said that there are three channels filled with fluid in the brain, called semicircular canals, and dizziness comes from the "KDSP" in our inner ear. Each one is aligned with a different axis of motion: up and down, left and right, left and right. "When you move your head, the liquid in the test tube will flow a little," Dizio told Life Science. Then you get these sensors. These sensors are like a small piece of seaweed in a tube. This liquid floats on the water, and you can feel what is happening.

Nodding in agreement, the sensors in a group of pipes are full of vitality. Shake your head. No, another set of tubes will send signals to the brain. Put your ear on each shoulder and the last set of sensors will start.

"Usually, what we do doesn't last long," Dizio said.

And especially, it often happens in a short time-turning out of the window, looking up and breaking your neck, and so on. And our inner ear is very suitable for tracking this movement.

"This information helps us to know our place in the world, and also helps us to keep a steady eye on the world," Dizio said.

James Lechner, a neuroscientist and motion sickness expert at brandeis University, said that eye stability is very important for balance and motion sickness.

If we can keep our eyes on the world and keep our bodies from turning, we usually won't feel sick. But when our sense of position and movement became abnormal, our eyes began to blink convulsively because they tried to keep up with the movement that didn't really happen. Dizio compares this effect to watching movies made by photographers with trembling hands. Lackner added that this is when our canyon rises.

Considering these reactions, Dizio said, continuous rotation-which is not the purpose of our body at all-is the perfect destruction of our inner ear and inertial feeling.

"If you put a glass of water on a lazy Susan, all you have to do is spin it a little and then stop, and the water won't move." . But "if you spin the turntable for a while and then stop, the water will generate some momentum." The table will continue to move for a long time before it stops turning.

Millay must perform triaxial events on the figure skating team. When I sit in an office chair and rotate, my ears will be similarly affected. The liquid in my ear absorbed enough momentum. After I parked my chair for a long time, they kept shaking, sending signals to my brain through sensors like seaweed, saying that my body was still moving. My brain tried to correct this movement, shaking my eyes, causing my body to lean to one side or the other, and then I began to fall.

Figure skaters have amazing control over their senses. Figure skaters like unshaven and Chen He are not immune to these influences. Their inner ears are the same as yours and mine. No one can train these liquids not to obey the law of inertia.

In the GIF below, Russian skater Evgeniya Medvedev's inner ear may be crazier than most people have experienced in their lives-every time she changes the position of her head, the effect will only get worse. DiZio said that "kdspe" and "kdsps" make an untrained person experience this kind of movement, they will feel that they are rolling in space, and their inner ear will emit continuous movement along more than one axis, Lackner. "kdspe" and "kdsps" will lead to "a kind of reflection, throwing yourself in another direction" and making yourself out of balance, "Dizio said.

This is not a reflection that a skater can bear.

Dizio said that the first step to overcome it is to get the brain used to feeling dizzy.

Habituation is a trick that the brain has been doing to avoid being constantly conquered by emotions. "It's like you start eating sweets, and after eating for a while, the taste is not so sweet," Dizio said.

But in order to prepare for the Olympic-level high-speed rotation, figure skaters need to adapt to a whole set of sensory inputs. This is much harder than getting used to a piece of cheesecake that is too sweet, or gradually putting yourself in cold water.

DiZio and Lackner understand this process because they have done similar experiments on people who need to control dizziness in other situations, such as potential astronauts and patients with internal injuries. Lackner said that brandeis University even has a big room, which can rotate at a speed of 7 times the gravity of the earth, although they rarely put subjects under more than twice the gravity of the earth.

That's it: "Practice-practice over and over again," Dizio said. Why is it so easy to cheat in the Olympic Games? ]

Lechner said that in patients with vertigo, this kind of exercise includes all kinds of twisting movements. For figure skaters, this process is simpler.

"Spin," Dizio said, "Spin once or twice, and then speed up. In the video below, for about 44 seconds, Beard tied herself to a device, and then one of her coaches used this device to lift her up and spin her quickly. This is a serious blow to the inner ear and needs a lot of repetition to eliminate it. Even so, the training is not perfect.

Have you ever thought about the cultivation of figure skaters in the Olympic Games? @miraiúungasu showed us the necessary conditions to become a world elite. Figure. twitter/AtNQy3F9Ly

-Players Tribune 2065438+February 9, 2008

"You can't 100% get used to it," Dizio said. Even a well-trained skater will feel some long-lost twisted doughnuts spinning.

These more subtle techniques will help.

Slate 2065 438+04 reported that the skating coach told them to get out of the rotation, and their eyes were fixed on a landmark.

Dizio said that from the perspective of neuroscience, this is meaningful. After turning for a long time, he said, "If you are already a D, the way the inner ear reflects will disturb your vision ... Isi and your vision are blurred, and you are a little lost."

By pre-selecting landmarks after each rotation to concentrate, Dizio said that skaters can correct their sight after each rotation to determine their position in space. In this way, "even if the inner ear gives them confused information, at least the eyes are helping them," he said.

It's another crazy possibility, but Dizio, after seeing many figure skaters in the Olympic Games, thinks that there is another reason: skaters don't fall down, and they will feel queasy after each performance.

"This is my theory-to be honest, I have never seen such a situation anywhere-but I think at least 80% of the time, when people are spinning, they will stop, they will not just stop. He said, "They really like to dance a little when they bow their heads at the end. They can consciously or unconsciously use the "dumping" of the senses to effectively interfere with the way the brain processes information. " , as Dizio explained:

All information from the inner ear enters the brain through the relay center and amplifier. Nerves wrap around themselves, causing the signal to "rotate! Spin! " The sound echoing in the brain is getting louder and louder, so that it can reach all related systems. And that "spin!" The path of the signal is exactly the same as that used to tell the rest of the brain the direction of the body relative to constant gravity.

Nathan Chen took part in the figure skating team competition. (Harry How/Getty) Bow your head and shake the obvious direction of gravity. This signal will be transmitted to the same relay center signal that has started to "rotate". In the case of limited resources, the relay "discards" the rotating signal from its amplifier to make room for the new signal: "Vibration! Hit! "

"Again, I've never seen anything like this anywhere," Dizio said, but in my opinion, it doesn't seem like an accident that skaters blend into their daily lives in the last little gesture. Whether consciously or unconsciously, they will regard it as a part of their daily life.

Lacknell confirmed that sensory dumping is a real effect, but he said he doubted whether skaters would use it in their dance.

"I think it's no big deal for skaters, because they have gone through such a habitual process," he said.

Whether or not the medal-winning skaters really exert their sensory relay unconsciously as Dizio speculated, the psychological exercise they carry out to prepare for the routine seems to be at least as Olympic as their physical preparation.

Originally published in the journal Life Science.