Question

a women spent a week on a cruise ship with periodic feeling of vertigo, but she successfully treated her initial nausea with drugs for motion sickness. A week after she disembarked, her feeling of vertigo returned. HOwever, this time it seemed like the room was spinning and she now had tinnitus.

1. Which organs of the vestibular apparatus would be activated by movements of the ship at sea? what role does vision play in vertigo caused by this movement? explain

2. what might cause the nausea of seasickness, and how does medication help to relieve this nause?

3. What is tinnitus, and how might it be produced when a person has vertigo?

Answer 1

Maculae in the vestibule or vestibular apparatus contain sensory receptors called hair cells, which are essential to the mechanism of static equilibrium. Semicircular canals are involved in the maintenance of dynamic equilibrium. Both these structures are disturbed by the movement of a ship at sea.

The overall body posture and movement is balanced by the integration of information received from the vestibular system (vestibule receptors), proprioceptors (somatic receptors) and visual receptors by the brain. The vestibular apparatus (and cochlea) present in the ear contains mechanoreceptors that respond to the sense of hearing and equilibrium.

Vertigo occurs when the oscillatory eye movements activate the vestibular apparatus. During this, the vestibular apparatus send information to the brain regarding the body movement, but eyes assume that the image is not moving. This failure in coordination cause vertigo, nausea, and vomiting.