VIDEO | Why do great apes spin in circles to get vertigo? Scientists have an explanation

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Great apes deliberately spin in circles to get vertigo, researchers say. Such behavior could offer an answer to the question of why people have developed a desire to change their mental state, says a scientist from the University of Warwick. He adds that this raises the possibility that this trait came from our ancestors, he reports "Science alert".

Scientists studied recordings of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans spinning in circles and came to this conclusion.

"If this is indeed the case, then it would have huge consequences for how we think about modern human cognitive capacities and emotional needs," said Dr. Adriano Lameira, associate professor of psychology at the University of Warwick and one of the scientists who led the research.

The research team studied a viral video of male gorillas gyrating in a pool and other online footage of monkeys also gyrating. The analysis revealed that the monkeys were spinning at an average speed of 1,5 revolutions per second. Many recordings show that primates use ropes to spin, and it was with these aids that they spun the longest and fastest.

"Spinning changes our state of consciousness, disrupts our body and mind response and coordination, which makes us feel sick, lucid, and even euphoric as in the case of children playing on merry-go-rounds and merry-go-rounds," says Dr. Lameira. . He adds that if all the great apes like to get dizzy, then it's highly likely that our ancestors did the same.

Primates do this deliberately, as if it were a dance, and the parallel between the behavior of humans and monkeys is more than coincidental.

In the monkeys, after the third round, dizziness is observed, due to which they probably lose their balance and fall.

"This would indicate that the primates deliberately continue to spin despite starting to feel vertigo, until they can no longer maintain their balance," said Dr. Marcus Perlman of the University of Birmingham, one of the scientists who led the research. .

Further research is needed to understand the primates' motivation for this behavior.

"It could also have something to do with mental health because the primates who behaved like this were mostly captive individuals, so maybe they were bored and trying to stimulate their senses in some way," says Dr. Lameira, adding that it could also to be behavior during the game.

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