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Brain Fact: Vertigo · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: The brain fact of today vertigo. So firstly, what is
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: vertigo and what causes vertigo? Okay, I'm going to be
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: covering there's a few causes that for vertigo. So in
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  Speaker 1: this brain fact, I'm going to be covering the vestibular
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: based vertigo, as there's a couple of them, and if
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I cover every kind of vertigo, that's kind of an
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  Speaker 1: episode in and of itself. So let's just stick to
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  Speaker 1: vestibular based vertigoes. And there's a few of them, because
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: there's also vertigoes that stem from like the central nervous
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  Speaker 1: system as in the brain cerebellum spinal called vibes. All right,
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  Speaker 1: so what is it? Vertigo is often described as this
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  Speaker 1: sensation of movement when there is none, okay, or the
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  Speaker 1: feeling that the world is spinning or moving aroun around
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  Speaker 1: you when in fact it's not. So sometimes it's or
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  Speaker 1: often it's coupled with the feeling of nausea in some
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  Speaker 1: cases even vomiting, or just feeling generally unwell, like you
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  Speaker 1: just feel off for a bit sick, which makes kind
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  Speaker 1: of sense if you've ever been it's kind of that
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  Speaker 1: feeling off if you've ever been on those like vomitron,
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  Speaker 1: all those like you know, those gravity things that spin
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  Speaker 1: around so fast and you get stuck to the walls,
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  Speaker 1: and when you come out of that, you feel a
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  Speaker 1: bit like, ooh, I need like I'm going to vomit.
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  Speaker 1: I can't stabilize some people to find other people not
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  Speaker 1: fine at all. I remember when I was a kid,
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  Speaker 1: I used to be able to go on those all
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  Speaker 1: the time and I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. And then
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  Speaker 1: as I got older, I went on it once and
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  Speaker 1: for a good hour I was not fucking okay. I
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  Speaker 1: vomited twice. I needed like all this because for me,
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  Speaker 1: sugar suppresses nausea personally, I don't know why. Maybe that's
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  Speaker 1: something I could research and fucking do a fact about that,
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  Speaker 1: but I would have to like pump all those like
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  Speaker 1: Pixi sticks filled with Sherbert because obviously it'd be a
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  Speaker 1: to theme park and then that would kind of like
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  Speaker 1: kill that nauseous feeling. But now that I have a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: better understanding of what vertigo is, it makes sense why
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  Speaker 1: I'd feel so ill after being on this vomitron thing,
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  Speaker 1: because it actually kind of for certain people can fuck
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  Speaker 1: around with your vestibular system temporarily and then cause these symptoms. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what it is is that it's caused by a misalignment
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  Speaker 1: of the sensory input that takes care of your posture,
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  Speaker 1: so your vision, your inner ear, the vestibular system, and
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  Speaker 1: also the senses that take care of your appropriate reception.
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  Speaker 1: So propriate reception is your awareness of where your body
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  Speaker 1: is at any given time. So if you were to
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  Speaker 1: close your eyes, you would still know where your hand
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  Speaker 1: is in relation to your nose. You could close your
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  Speaker 1: eyes and get your finger tipped to your nose or
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  Speaker 1: relatively close to your nose even with your eyes closed.
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  Speaker 1: There's you know, you know where your body is in
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  Speaker 1: space even without having your eyes open. That's propri eception.
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  Speaker 1: And that word comes from approprio is like one's own
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  Speaker 1: and perception, perception, so perception of yourself. So that is vertigo.
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  Speaker 1: When those things are misaligned to you appropriate reception and
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  Speaker 1: all the sensory inputs, they just don't add up. Now,
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  Speaker 1: what I am talking about today is the vestibular system.
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  Speaker 1: So let's kind of talk about the vestibular system first
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  Speaker 1: and then talk about how vertigo can be caused with
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  Speaker 1: vestibular system related vertigo. So the vestibular system is made
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  Speaker 1: up of the inner ear and these it's called the
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  Speaker 1: semicircular canals. Okay, So the semicircular canals, they exist in
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  Speaker 1: both your ears and the inner well inside your ear,
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  Speaker 1: and it's three loops. And these loops are in different
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  Speaker 1: positions within the inner ear, and these loops are filled
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  Speaker 1: with fluid called endolymph. Okay, that's the fluid that fills
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  Speaker 1: these loops. Now, each of these canals, these loops detect
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  Speaker 1: a different kind of movement. So one detects side to
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  Speaker 1: side movement, so as if you're you're shaking, you had
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  Speaker 1: no One detects up and down movement as if you're
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  Speaker 1: shaking your head, yes, and one is more like a
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  Speaker 1: rolling movement of like a dipping and then coming back
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  Speaker 1: up kind of feeling. And when you move in these directions,
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  Speaker 1: and those three canals detect in each one, when you
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  Speaker 1: move in these directions, the fluid in those canals move,
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  Speaker 1: and this movement is detected by these tiny hairs called stereocilia,
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  Speaker 1: which are located at the end of these canals. So
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  Speaker 1: the input travels down, so visile hairs, you know, detect
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  Speaker 1: the movement from that fluid. And then it sends an
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  Speaker 1: input like this. The movement of the hairs activates this input,
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  Speaker 1: which then travels down a nerve called the vestibular nerve,
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  Speaker 1: to the brain stem an area called the vestibular nucleus,
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  Speaker 1: and then to the cerebellum as well, which is that
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  Speaker 1: like extra part of So if you look at a brain,
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  Speaker 1: there's a bit that sits kind of underneath the main
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  Speaker 1: part of the brain. It's like an added bit called
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  Speaker 1: the cerebellum just behind the brain stem. And then once
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  Speaker 1: that gets sent through, then the brain understands that the
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  Speaker 1: head is moving in a certain direction, and that's kind
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  Speaker 1: of the information that that's sent to other parts of
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  Speaker 1: the brain. So, oh, it's looking down, it's looking up,
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  Speaker 1: it's turning, it's rolling, all of the above. So this
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  Speaker 1: nucleus then projects that information to other parts of the brain,
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  Speaker 1: like parts of the brain that control eye movement in
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  Speaker 1: the spinal cord, cerebellum, and these areas will then all
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  Speaker 1: help coordinate movement through the body for balance, for what
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  Speaker 1: you're going to do next, for you know, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Just so it's this constant feedback loop of where your
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  Speaker 1: head is, what position it is getting sent to these
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  Speaker 1: areas and then that getting projected back out to other
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  Speaker 1: areas of the brain to respond accordingly with movement, balance,
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  Speaker 1: you know, reactions to things, et cetera, et cetera. Now,
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  Speaker 1: balance and the vestibular system are very very very very
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  Speaker 1: very heavily linked because of that reason. If the vestibular
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  Speaker 1: system is off and it's not sending through the write
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  Speaker 1: messages to the brain stem and the parts of the
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  Speaker 1: body that's then going to control movement according to where
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  Speaker 1: your head position is, then your balance is going to
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  Speaker 1: be absolutely skewed and your body is not going to
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  Speaker 1: know how to respond to keep your equilibrium because balance
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  Speaker 1: is all around these tiny tiny muscles that are either
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  Speaker 1: relaxing or tensing, relaxing or tensing constantly, and you've got
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  Speaker 1: this constant signal being sent up and down through your
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  Speaker 1: spinal cord to help maintain your balance, and that's where
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  Speaker 1: reflexes come in. But they're going to do a whole
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  Speaker 1: brain factor on reflexes coming up. So you can imagine
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  Speaker 1: if these canals, for whatever reason, are stuffed up, your
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  Speaker 1: balance is going to be stuffed up too. And vertigo
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  Speaker 1: can be caused by something affecting the vestibular system. I
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  Speaker 1: did mention earlier that there are ways, there are things
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  Speaker 1: that cause vertigo that aren't directly related to the vestibular system,
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  Speaker 1: but that would be caused. It's called that's a central problem.
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  Speaker 1: A vertigo caused by a central problem. And this is vertigo.
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  Speaker 1: If it's in the vestibular system, it's a peripheral problem.
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  Speaker 1: So when it's peripheral vertigo, it means peripheral to the
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  Speaker 1: central nervous system, because central nervous system is brain, spinal cord,
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  Speaker 1: brain stem. That stuff peripheral is anything outside of the
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  Speaker 1: central nervous system. And those are even the nerves that
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  Speaker 1: protrude out of the like the cranial nerves and nerves
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  Speaker 1: that protrude out of the head. So let's quickly go
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  Speaker 1: through the causes. We've got vestibular neurinitis. So that happens
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  Speaker 1: when you have an inflamed vestibular nerve, and viral infections
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  Speaker 1: often occur, and this then inflames that vestibular nerve. Like
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  Speaker 1: you can get a viral infection from a million different things,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in many different scenarios. But when that nerve
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  Speaker 1: is inflamed, that vestibular nerve where the little hairs move
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  Speaker 1: and send the message down that nerve. Then when it's inflamed,
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  Speaker 1: the message is not being sent properly or seamlessly. It's disrupted,
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  Speaker 1: and because it's disrupted, it brings on this acute vertigo.
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  Speaker 1: And acute is like quick onset vertigo, and it can
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  Speaker 1: last for weeks. So if you're someone that suffered vertigo,
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  Speaker 1: you might have only had it once off for a
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  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and that may have been due to
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  Speaker 1: an inflamed vestibular nerve or vestibular neuriniitis. Another thing that
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  Speaker 1: could cause vertigo is something called bpp V, which stands
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  Speaker 1: for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, and that is these crystals.
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  Speaker 1: I've spoken about this back in the day of the podcast.
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  Speaker 1: But you've got crystals in your head like we've all
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  Speaker 1: got rocks in our head. Technically, there's tiny crystals in
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  Speaker 1: the canals called otoconia. There's all these different like names
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  Speaker 1: for it, but one of the names is otoconia. And
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  Speaker 1: these little crystals which help detect the movement alongside their
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  Speaker 1: little hairs and all these things, and these tiny little crystals,
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  Speaker 1: if these crystals become displaced, so this could be due
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  Speaker 1: to an infection, it could be due to head trauma.
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  Speaker 1: It can also be idiopathic in the sense that they
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  Speaker 1: don't know why they've become displaced, but they are moved.
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  Speaker 1: The crystals are moved from where they should be, and
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  Speaker 1: that disrupts the flow of that fluid in the canals.
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  Speaker 1: So again the system's not working properly between the areas
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  Speaker 1: and the communications not just getting sent through. So in
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  Speaker 1: this scenario, if you have bpp V where the crystals
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  Speaker 1: are displaced, it is vertigo is specifically felt when there
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  Speaker 1: is movement, because movement is needed to set off this effect. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: if the person is still then there and there's no movement,
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  Speaker 1: the crystals aren't moving and in this moment, the crystals
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  Speaker 1: aren't disrupting anything. So that's one of the ways of
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  Speaker 1: differentiating a different kind of vertigo to this particular kind
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  Speaker 1: of vertigo. And when you do move, this feeling can
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  Speaker 1: last around a minute before going away, and this can
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  Speaker 1: go on for weeks and then just resolve on its own,
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  Speaker 1: and in some cases it can be reoccurring as well.
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  Speaker 1: So if you are someone that suffered from vertigo and
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  Speaker 1: you find that when you're not moving, it's perfectly fine.
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  Speaker 1: This may be the kind of vertigo that you have.
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  Speaker 1: Then we've got something called Meneers disease. I hope I'm
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  Speaker 1: pronouncing that properly, which is a build up of fluid
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  Speaker 1: in the canals of that endolymph fluid and because there's
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  Speaker 1: too much of that fluid in the canals, it puts
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  Speaker 1: on more pressure and it causes more issues than just vertigo.
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  Speaker 1: It can also cause tandis or TANDUS hearing loss, things
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  Speaker 1: that are not necessarily associated with movement, so that, in
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  Speaker 1: a nutshell, is vertigo caused by problems or issues within
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  Speaker 1: the vestibular system. Like I said, there are other causes
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  Speaker 1: of vertigo that happen from within the brain directly or
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  Speaker 1: the brain stem, but I was just going to cover
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  Speaker 1: that one specifically, because otherwise it's a whole episode. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you found that interesting.