how does the feeling of nausea happen in the body?

488 views

how does the feeling of nausea happen in the body?

In: Biology

Anonymous 0 Comments

So we actually know way less about the mechanics of nausea and vomiting than you’d expect, but here’s what I can find.

Nausea is triggered by the irritation of nerves in the stomach, which can be caused by a ton of things (hunger, overeating, illness, motion sickness, etc). Those nerves tell your brain (not eli5: specifically, the nausea and vomiting centers in the medulla) what’s going on, which then activates nausea.

The weird part is that so many things cause nausea, including things that are nowhere near the stomach. Motion sickness, for example, is caused by your inner ear. Stress can cause nausea as well. Surprisingly, it was really hard to find anything that suggested why so many seemingly unrelated things cause nausea, so I can’t help you there. **Edit: see u/maniacalmustacheride’s comment below for more info**. To boil it down, when your eyes see motion that’s offset to the motion you’re feeling, your body thinks you may have poisoned yourself and tried to get rid of what you ate.

From what I can tell, the way it feels and the place we feel it in are just how evolution decided it should function. It makes sense for nausea to affect the stomach area, and it also makes sense for it to feel different from regular pain.