Want to sneeze when looking at the sun? Maybe your reflex arcs are fighting?

Want to sneeze when looking at the sun? Maybe your reflex arcs are fighting?

Sneezing is a very common phenomenon, but have you noticed that inonome specific occasions, sneezing always comes as expected, for example, what a strange experience it is to feel like sneezing when you see the sun. This article explains the reasons for sneezing in the sun in detail, nd hereby extends the abnormal sneezing in other occasions. I believe there is always a strange sneezing you have ever had.

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Sneezing is a very common phenomenon, but have you noticed that inonome specific occasions, sneezing always comes as expected, for example, what a strange experience it is to feel like sneezing when you see the sun. This article explains the reasons for sneezing in the sun in detail, and hereby extends the abnormal sneezing other occasions. I believe there is always a strange sneezing you have ever had.

Some people may have experienced:

In the scorching summer, when you walk out of a shady building, you are blinded by the sun.

In fact, people who feel this way are called "sun sneezers."

Studies have found that "sun-sneezers" make up about 10%-35% of the population.

This phenomenon even has a scientific name called "Photic Sneeze Reflex", which usually occurs when a person moves from a dark place to a brighter light

As early as thousands of years ago, there were records of this strange sneezing in ancient Greece.

Aristotle, for example, might have been a "sun-sneezer."

In his Book of Problems he asked:

"Why do people sneeze a lot after looking at the sun? Is it because the heat caused by the sun causes a movement like scratching the nose with a feather?

After all, the effect of both is the same. Through this movement, the sunlight moistens the nasal passages, thereby allowing breath to be produced more quickly. It was the breath that created the sneeze as it fled. "

Aristotle's Book of Questions

Aristotle, a genius of logic, asked again:

"Why does the heat of the sun cause a sneeze, but not the heat of a fire?"

The explanation he gave was that the heat of the sun aerosolized the fluid in the nasal passages, causing the sneeze.

The flame not only evaporates these liquids, but also swallows them, which dries out the nasal passages and suppresses sneezing.

But thousands of years later the English philosopher Francis Bacon dismissed this explanation as plausible.

The reason he gave was that if he had closed his eyes and faced the sun, he wouldn't have this urge to sneeze.

He then had before believed that sunlight caused the eyes to secrete tears, and some of the tears flowed into the nasal cavity, which made the nose itchy and caused the sneeze.

But there's a problem with this theory: It takes much longer for the eyes to get wet than for sunlight to cause a sneeze, so it shouldn't be tears either.

Therefore, it is speculated that this symptom is related to genetics, which is "autosomal dominant inheritance".

That is to say, as long as a child receives inhuman distance from either parent, he will suffer from this symptom.

So they gave this disease a mouthful name: Autosomal Cholinergic Helio-Ophtalmologic Outburst.

Laboratory case studies of this symptom are scarce.

A physician named Harold H. Morris III provided a valuable case.

One of his 55-year-old female patients told him that she had a history of spontaneous and photosensitive epilepsy.

She says she "sneezes easily," but has never noticed whether her sneezing was caused by the light

To find out, the doctor tried to shine light in her eyes in different ways.

Experiments have found that simply shining a flash of light at 15 Hz into her eyes can induce a sneeze.

On average, patients sneezed 9.9 seconds after the first flash.

Not only did she sneeze, but she usually sneezed two in a row, and sometimes three in a row.

According to the doctor's notes, "the interval between sneezes is 2 to 4 seconds."

As for the frequency of 15 Hz, the doctor guessed that it was just a coincidence, because there was no physiological reason to suspect that there was anything special about this frequency.

At present, there is still debate on the specific mechanism of this phenomenon. One theory believes that it is related to the trigeminal nerve.

The "trigeminal nerve", as the name suggests, consists of three branches: the "ophthalmic nerve", the "maxillary nerve", and the "mandibular nerve".


Theory outcomes:

This theory holds that the "Pupillary Light Reflex Arc" (Pupillary Light Reflex Arc) belonging to the ophthalmic nerve crosses the neural pathway belonging to the "Sneezing Reflex Arc" (Sneezing Reflex Arc), so that the stimulation of the ophthalmic nerve spills over to the upper jaw. Irritation of the nerve eventually leads to sneezing.

But experiments have found that repeated stimuli do not cause sneezing.

This also explains why people with this symptom don't sneeze all the time on sunny days, but only when they just come out of the dark. Some scientists also believe that this is the fault of the parasympathetic nerve.

The parasympathetic nervous system is the part of the autonomic nervous sys that is primarily responsible for regulating the resting activities of the body, such as sleep and digestion.

The parasympathetic nervous system has many adjacent nerve fibers that respond to different stimuli.

But sometimes a stimulus can stimulate several neural pathways at the same time, and at this time, "Parasympathetic Generalization" (Parasympathetic Generalization) occurs.

It is possible that light stimulation caused this generalization, resulting in nasal itching. Most of the time, this phenomenon is not harmful to people, but has potential benefits.

Sneezing is a respiratory defense mechanism that removes allergens or pathogenic substances from the airways.

A human sneeze can eject as many as 40,000 particles at 85% of the speed of sound.

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