Eyes wiggle ears

August 6, 2019 Staff reporters

It may sound a challenge akin to patting your head and rubbing your belly, but neuroscientists at Duke University have discovered that your ears move when your eyes do.

Even without sound, the eardrums vibrate with any eye movement, study author Professor Jennifer Groh found. “Because the vibrations and eye movements seem to start simultaneously, it seems as if both processes are controlled by the same parts of the brain, suggesting the same motor commands control both processes,” she said.

Prof Groh and her team in North Carolina used rhesus monkeys and humans in an experiment that has provided new understanding of how the brain pairs hearing and sight.