Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Nothing To Sneeze At ... Unless It's Sunny

Apparently, exposure to sunlight can elicit a sneezing reaction in some people. A recent PLoS paper, by researchers at the University of Zurich, concludes:
We propose that the photic sneeze phenomenon might be the consequence of higher sensitivity to visual stimuli in the visual cortex and of co-activation of somatosensory areas. The ‘photic sneeze reflex’ is therefore not a classical reflex that occurs only at a brainstem or spinal cord level but, in stark contrast to many theories, involves also specific cortical areas.

Ah choo! (Please draw the curtains)
Posted by at 3:28 PM
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4 comments:

  1. I have known several people who did this. One colleague would regularly sneeze three times when walking outside. It became so commonplace, we ran out of jokes.
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  2. How can they know? It is never sunny in Zurich.
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  3. Deep. Photic sneezing only requires "sunlight," not sunny. The latter was pure poetic license, on my part, to hook readers. Both words worked. So, maybe the U of Z authors won't have to retract, after all.
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  4. Great article. The following line of the article is intriguing:

    "Usually, photic sneezing is evoked by sunlight, but Sedan [4] argues that artificial light, such as the light of an ophthalmoscope, photographic flash, or ultraviolet light, should also cause a sneeze."

    So potentially taking a flash photo of a subject prone to photic sneezing in a darkened room would be enough to trigger a sneeze?

    I wonder if 10:06 anonymous above could track down said colleague for some experimentation...
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