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researchers have already developed a basic understanding of how the brain constructs our perceptions of ourselves in motion

until now no one has understood the crucial step by which the neurons in the brain select the information needed to keep us in balance.

The peripheral vestibular sensory neurons in the inner ear take in the time varying acceleration and velocity stimuli caused by our movement in the outside world

These neurons transmit detailed information about these stimuli to the brain

in the form of nerve impulses.

Scientists had previously believed that the brain decoded this information linearly and therefore actually attempted to reconstruct the time course of velocity and acceleration stimuli

by combining electrophysiological and computational approaches

two professors

have been able to show for the first time that the neurons in the vestibular nuclei in the brain instead decode incoming information nonlinearly as they respond preferentially to unexpected, sudden changes in stimuli.

the selective transmission of vestibular information they were able to document for the first time occurs as early as the first synapse in the brain