Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense by Scott McCredie
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FAQ & RESOURCES

Why should people be interested in balance?
Balance is a primary component of our everyday lives, from cradle to grave, from the moment we rise from bed in the morning till we go to sleep at night. It is essential for athletic performance in virtually every sport or activity. As with the other senses, it usually declines rapidly after age 60. Knowing how balance works, and how to maintain and improve it, can lead to improved coordination, smoother movement, and less risk of certain injuries and falling–at any age. Balance is also linked to cognitive functions such as reading and spatial reasoning. In some people, improved balance equals faster, more efficient information processing.
If balance is so important, why isn’t it discussed as much as the other senses?
The sense of balance is so enormously complicated (involving not one but three sensory inputs), and operates at such an unconscious level, that it escaped detection by scientists until the 19th century. Because Aristotle couldn’t sense balance with his other five senses, he believed humans have only five primary senses, not six. So until recently balance has always been in the shadows.
What’s the most common form of balance disorder?
Motion sickness. The nausea we feel sometimes when riding a car, flying in an airplane, sailing on a boat, or watching an IMAX movie is caused by the balance system. That’s something most people have experienced at some point in their lives. It’s also something Lord Nelson, the famous British admiral, suffered from each time he went to sea. As children, ear infections can cause balance problems. Later in life, the most common balance disorders are positional vertigo and Meniere’s disease.
Why did it take so long for science to discover how balance works?
Because scientists didn’t have a good idea about how certain bodily organs worked until the last century and a half. They could dissect the body but didn’t know what they were looking at. For instance, the vestibular apparatus, the body’s “gyroscope,” is about the size of a pencil eraser, with little doughnut-shaped canals filled with fluid. Because it is located next to the ear, early scientists thought it was involved with hearing. Later it was discovered that it was the body’s primary motion and gravity sensing organ. Likewise, muscles and joints have specialized cells within them that tell the brain about the body’s position relative to itself. These “proprioceptive” cells, essential for balance, were not discovered until the 19th century.
How does the vestibular apparatus relate us to lobsters?
In form and function it is very close to that of lobsters and sharks, which are hundreds of millions years old. One part of the vestibular apparatus is called an otolith organ, which features tiny grains of calcium carbonate. These little particles are almost exactly like the grains of sand that lobsters use to “refresh” their own otolith organs, which may be a clue to the origin of our own “ear rocks.” (Yes, all of us have rocks in our heads!)
Was Karl Wallenda a balance “superman”?
Yes and no. Like most professional circus performers, he learned how to walk on tight wires as a youngster, and practiced diligently throughout his life. He first learned early how to walk on low wires, then graduated to high wires. But he probably started with no more natural athletic skill than most teenagers have. All humans come from a long line of “arboreal acrobats.”
How did he and other famous wirewalkers manage to continue wire walking late into their senior years?
Daily practice. By constantly challenging their balance systems, they were able to maintain a superbly honed sense of balance. Most of the famous wirewalkers lived (and performed) into their 70s and 80s (and died of natural causes). And this provides a major clue about how ordinary people can preserve and improve their own sense of balance.
You state that it was John F. Kennedy Jr.’s vestibular apparatus that was responsible for his fatal plane crash. How did this happen?
As a relatively new pilot who wasn’t instrument-rated, Kennedy fell prey to a phenomenon called “spatial disorientation,” which is an illusion perpetrated on the brain by the vestibular apparatus.
How did the sense of balance help our early ancestors survive?
It allowed humans to run across rough terrain while staying upright, keeping prey (or predator) in sharp visual focus, and perhaps contributed to their ability to find their way home in unfamiliar territory.
What’s the relationship between balance and cognitive function?
Some people believe that the vestibular apparatus “organizes” and integrates the other senses, because it is one of the first senses to form in the embryo, and because it alone relies on a constant, unchanging force– gravity–as a reference point. Only when the brain can easily make use of all sensory input can it function efficiently. The vestibular apparatus is one of the primary sensory inputs into a part of the brain called the cerebellum, which is now believed by some scientists to control mental as well as physical coordination and timing. Studies have shown that in some groups of people (mostly those with learning disabilities), improving vestibular function also improves cognitive functions such as reading and learning.

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Copyright June 2007: Scott McCredie

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