My PhD project is about …
… finding out why we feel dizzy and why we get motion sickness. My colleagues and I are currently investigating whether stomach movement contributes to feelings of dizziness. We are working on the hypothesis that the more movement there is in our stomach and intestines, the dizzier we become, and vice versa.
So how do we test this? We do this, amongst other things, by spinning our test subjects round in a special chair for two rounds. The chair is normally used to treat dizziness, but we are using it for the opposite purpose. First, they are spun round without tensing their abdominal muscles, then we spin them round whilst they tense their abdominal muscles.
Finally, we compare the degree of dizziness they experienced during both spins. In addition, we compare the results with other ways of inducing dizziness, such as using virtual reality.
