Ballet Dancers can Spin Fast Due to Changes in Core Brain Regions

Ballet dancers can perform pirouettes- spinning on one leg- without throwing-up because the years of training helps reduce activity in cerebellum and cerebral cortex. The study was conducted by researchers at Imperial College London.

The human balance system is very complex and includes many organ systems that work simultaneously to orient the body in the right position. One such system is vestibular organs in the inner ear. These fluid-filled organs have tiny hair that can detect the position of the head by sensing the movement of the fluid. During a spin, the fluid moves and takes time to settle even after the body has stopped moving, which is why, most of us feel dizzy after a spin.

Ballet dancers can do multiple pirouettes without the feeling dizzy and according to a new study this achievement isn't just due to some trick that they use. Researchers found that the brains of ballet dancers get used to the spinning and suppress the information coming from the inner-ear organs.

The study included 29 female ballet dancers who were the study group and age-matched 20 female rowers as control group.

All the study participants were individually spun around in a chair in a dark room. The women were also asked to turn a handle after spinning. They had to turn the handle as fast as they felt that they were spinning. Researchers then hooked the participants onto an MRI scanner.

The experts also detected eye-reflexes which were associated with activity of the vestibular organs. They found that both perception of spinning and eye-reflexes associated with activity of vestibular organs was reduced in dancers when compared to rowers.

The MRI scans showed that brains of dancers were different from brains of rowers in two regions; the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex. The cerebellum plays a major role in motor control and the cerebral cortex is responsible for perception of dizziness.

According to the scientists, dancers' brains may have shrunken activity in the region for ballet movements.

"It's not useful for a ballet dancer to feel dizzy or off balance. Their brains adapt over years of training to suppress that input. Consequently, the signal going to the brain areas responsible for perception of dizziness in the cerebral cortex is reduced, making dancers resistant to feeling dizzy. If we can target that same brain area or monitor it in patients with chronic dizziness, we can begin to understand how to treat them better," Barry Seemungal, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, said in a news release.

The study is published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.