See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up. Support science journalism. This has also been a concern for pilots. Therefore, a simple pair of sunglasses can prevent this reaction. This blog is for informational purposes only. For specific medical questions, please consult your physician.
Sicard practices in our Matthews office. Have you ever sneezed at the wrong moment, like during a quiet event or in the middle of lunch? You might be tempted to hold it in, but is it safe? Cochlear Implants. Hearing Aids. Hearing Aid Batteries. Hearing Aid Styles. Hearing Loss. Hearing Test.
Types of Hearing Aids. Allergy Symptoms. Allergy Testing. Allergy Treatment. Acid Reflux. Balloon Sinuplasty. The heat of a fire, on the other hand, not only vaporises those fluids, but also consumes them, thus drying out the nose, which actually inhibits a sneeze. Never mind that he wasn't exactly spot on either in the cause for the sunny sneeze — it's light, not heat — nor in the explanation, but it means that the reflex was known to some perhaps as early as the third century BC. We now know quite a bit more about the biology that underlies the photic sneeze reflex.
For example, the reflex is now also known by the hilariously apt acronym Achoo, which stands for Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-opthalmic Outburst. In , a group of geneticists led by Nicholas Eriksson of the genetic testing company 23andMe identified two single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, that were associated with the sunny sneeze by assessing the genotypes of nearly 10, 23andMe customers.
These SNPs are alterations to single letters within a person's genetic library. One is called rs and the other, about which there is somewhat less statistical certainty, is called rs One of them is located nearby a gene known to be involved in light-induced epileptic seizures, which raises the possibility that there might be some kind of biological link between the two syndromes.
Driving from dark tunnels into the light can be dangerous if you're a photic sneezer Credit: Getty Images. A year-old woman referred to him had a history of suffering from seizures, both spontaneous and in response to light.
She described herself as an "easy sneezer", but never really noticed if her sneezes could be a response to light as well. Because its prevalence is higher in individuals with a family history of the disorder, the handful of scientists who have studied the phenomena suspect a genetic, autosomal dominant — a person needs only one parent with the condition to inherit it. Photic sneeze reflex is a relatively harmless disorder that causes people to sneeze in bright light after being in a dark space.
A regular sneeze is a violent preemptive strike. It is a reflex meant to protect the nasal passages and lungs from infectious agents or irritants. An estimated 40, microscopic particles can spew out of the human body — at a rate 85 percent the speed of sound — each time we sneeze.
How delightful. But why did evolution decide for some of us to sneeze when accosted by bright light? Answer: Likely, no. But large, in-depth studies on this or other theories are lacking, with most photic sneeze reflex research based on small case studies of single families or small groups of photic sneezers.
Subscribe to our Science Newsletter to explore the wide worlds of science, health and technology. For example, in , a Swiss study found greater stimulation of the primary and secondary visual cortex — regions of the brain that processes visual information — of 10 photic sneezers when exposed to various wavelengths of light compared to those who do not have the reflex.
The optic nerve feeds information to the visual cortex.
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