The ancient muscles that lean in the ear begin when people strive to listen. This atrial activity, described on January 30 in Borders in neuroscienceI probably do not do much, in any case. But These small muscles are at least presentAnd more active than anyone knew.
You have probably seen a cat or a dog balance your ears towards a sound, such as satellite dishes that are oriented to a signal. We cannot move our relatively rigid human ears so dramatically. And yet, humans still have muscles that move their ears, as we know those of us that we can move our ears on request.
The neuroscientist Andreas Schröer and his colleagues asked 20 people with a normal audition to listen to an engraved voice while distracted by the podcasts that reproduce in the background. All the time, the electrodes around the ears recorded muscle activity. A muscle of the ear called the upper atrial muscle, which is located just above the ear and lifts it, lights when the listening conditions were difficult, the researchers found.
Millions of years ago, these muscles may have helped human ancestors collect sounds. Today, it is doubtful that this small amount of muscle activity helps a person listen better, although scientists have not tried that. “He does his best effort, but he probably doesn’t work,” says Schröer, from the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, Germany.
These vestigial muscles may not help us listen, but their activity could provide a measurement of a person’s auditory efforts. This information can be useful for hearing aid technology, telling the device to change their behavior when a person is fighting, for example.
Schröer says that the wide variety of ears, and the skills in a bad mood, is a challenge for research on ear muscles. “Actually, there is enough variability in the size of your atrial muscles, which is sometimes also a bit difficult for us when we want to record [their activity]. “
The same ear, Schröer has compiled stories of notable ears, such as people who feel their ears move towards a sound and people who use their movements of the ears in daily life. “They simply move their ears a bit, and then their glasses are back in the nose where they belong,” he says.
This ear investigation is comforting for some people with exceptional ear control, says Schröer. “They really appreciate it because they always thought they were a bit strange.”
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