WOULD you believe that zapping your head with electricity could help you keep
your balance? The trick is to manipulate the nerve signals that help your brain
work out precisely which direction is vertical.
We normally keep our balance by monitoring input from three sources—our
eyes, our “somatic” system, which includes our sense of touch, and the
vestibular system, a set of fluid-filled tubes in the inner ear. If we move or
sway, tiny hairs pick up disturbances in the fluid, and nerves send signals to
the brain from each ear.
Jim Collins’s team from Boston University is using…
