Can people hear their eyes moving?
Yes and the sound corresponds to the opening (or dehiscence) of the bone covering the superior semicircular canal, a structure of the inner ear.
“Normally, describes Professor Vincent Darrouzet, ENT doctor at the Bordeaux University Hospital, sound reaches the ear through the auditory canal, the eardrum and then the three ossicles. The last, the stirrup, presses on a membrane called the “oval window” through which sound enters the inner ear. Then, it travels through the liquids of the cochlea, the organ of hearing, to a second membrane through which it emerges: the “round window”. This bulges when the stirrup sinks, and vice versa. »
Minor’s syndrome, a disabling ENT disease
Canal dehiscence, related to bone wear or trauma, opens a third window. Which “increases the perception of internal body noises, especially the voice. Talking vibrates the cranial box and the sound reaches the inner ear by bone conduction”. Thus, patients complain of not being able to bear hearing their own voice, their heartbeat in the ear, the resonance of their footsteps, even the contraction of the eye muscles when the eyes move, as well as other symptoms ( dizziness…) related to the role of the canal in balance.
Without an anomaly of the inner ear, these internal sounds are imperceptible. If we bang our head or scratch our chin, we can hear it by bone conduction, but the other noises of the organism (gurgles, farts, burps…) reach us mainly by air (via the external ear) , and in this case, everyone benefits!
