Traveling makes us feel sick because modern transport tricks the brain into thinking we have been poisoned, a neuroscientist has said.

 

一位神经系统科学家表示，现代交通工具会诱导大脑认为我们已经中毒，所以旅行常常使我们感到不舒服。

 

Being in a car, train, boat or plane causes conflicting signals in the brain which trigger a reaction similar to that which occurs when someone is poisoned.

 

Dr Dean Burnett, of Cardiff University, said the feeling of nausea¹ is caused because the brain thinks the body needs to remove a toxin² through vomiting³.

 

But in fact, the 'poisoning' effect is caused by the mixed messages from the muscles - which tell the brain the body is motionless - and the ears, which sense movement.

 

Speaking on the US radio show Fresh Air, Dr Burnett said that the body had not yet evolved to cope with the sensation of being in vehicles, where the body is being moved without performing movements itself.

 

He said: 'When we're in a vehicle like a car or a train or a ship especially, you're not actually physically⁴ moving... Your muscles are saying 'we are stationary⁵'.

 

'If you are sitting in a ship, you're looking at a static environment, so there's no information for the eyes to say 'we are moving'.

 

'But the fluids in your ears, they obey the laws of physics. And they are sort of rocking around and sloshing because you are actually moving.

 

'So what's happening there is the brain's getting mixed messages. It's getting signals from the muscles and the eyes saying "we are still" and signals from the balance sensors⁶ saying 'we're in motion'. Both of these cannot be correct. There's a sensory⁷ mismatch there.

 

'And in evolutionary⁸ terms, the only thing that can cause a sensory mismatch like that is a neurotoxin or poison. So the brain thinks, essentially⁹, it's been being poisoned.

 

'When it's been poisoned, the first thing it does is get rid of the poison, aka throwing up.'

 

He explained that reading in a car made the sensation of travel sickness worse, because the eyes were focused on a small, static space and gave the brain no information to explain that the body was moving.

 

The feeling of sickness could be relieved by looking out of a car window because this showed the brain movement was taking place.

 

'You can see the passage and movement itself, so that balances the system,' he said.

 

'The brain's going: 'Oh, look, things moving - I must be moving' - and then sort of calms down the sickness response.'

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