Vertigogo

Summary

Radiolab: Vertigogo – Episode Summary

Radiolab, hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser, delves into the intricate interplay between the human brain and our perceptions of reality. In the episode titled "Vertigogo," released on February 7, 2025, the show explores the phenomenon of vertigo through two compelling narratives—one personal and scientific, the other a literary exploration.

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1. Liza Schoenfeld's Ordeal: When Science Meets the Self

[01:01] The episode opens with Lulu introducing Liza Schoenfeld, a research technician at the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. As a budding neuroscientist, Liza is immersed in the study of the basal ganglia—a pivotal brain region responsible for controlling movement.

[02:15] Liza shares her early career aspirations, applying to prestigious graduate programs at institutions like the University of Washington and UC San Diego. Her passion for neuroscience is palpable as she discusses her work with optogenetics—a groundbreaking technology that allows precise control over neuronal activity using light.

[03:20] Through her research, Liza explains how scientists can manipulate the basal ganglia in mice, effectively "puppeteering" their movements with lasers. This innovative approach offers profound insights into motor control and neurological disorders.

[07:02] However, Liza's journey takes an unexpected turn when she experiences severe nausea from a common anti-nausea medication, Compazine. "[...] the drug had been doing to her pretty much what she'd been doing to those mice," Robert Krulwich remarks at [11:14]. This side effect induces acute dystonia—a condition causing involuntary muscle contractions—mirroring the very mechanisms she studies in her lab.

[10:21] Amid a pivotal graduate interview, Liza's uncontrollable facial and neck movements bewilder both her and the interviewers. "[...] I couldn't stop it. I look surprised at everything I'm saying," Liza recounts at [08:22]. Despite the chaos, she manages to navigate the interview, though the experience leaves her unanswered questions about her body's rebellion against her scientific understanding.

[12:14] Emergency intervention with Benadryl swiftly alleviates her symptoms, restoring control over her basal ganglia. Reflecting on her ordeal, Liza expresses profound empathy for her lab mice, now seeing them through the lens of personal vulnerability. "[...] I just really empathize with them," she states at [12:33].

Ultimately, Liza's perseverance pays off as she secures a place as a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, armed with firsthand experience of the delicate balance within the human brain.

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2. Rosemary Morton's Descent: A Literary Voyage into Vertigo

Transitioning from personal experience to literary narrative, Radiolab presents an evocative essay by Burton Ruscha, brought to life by actress Hope Davis. [17:00] The story chronicles Rosemary Morton's harrowing battle with vertigo, a condition rooted in labyrinthitis—"[...] an inflammation of the inner ear," Jad Abumrad explains at [26:45].

[17:06] Rosemary's journey begins innocuously on a quiet evening, disrupted by unexplained tremors and movements that leave her questioning her reality. As these sensations intensify, they morph into vivid distortions of space and self, blurring the lines between perception and physicality.

[19:35] Over months, Rosemary experiences an escalating series of disorienting events: floors wobble, walls tilt, and her body feels amorphous, as if influenced by external gravitational forces. "[...] I was almost at the end of the passage when I felt the movement change," she narrates, capturing the terror and confusion that grip her daily existence.

[21:40] Despite consulting numerous specialists, Rosemary receives no definitive diagnosis—"Normal. Essentially normal," the doctors assure her at [21:40]. This dismissal only deepens her anxiety, leading to an existential crisis marked by an urgent obsession with life's fleeting moments and sensory experiences.

[27:08] The narrative crescendos as Rosemary confronts the cumulative impact of her condition, culminating in an inexplicable recovery. "She must be feeling much better," her husband observes at [28:13], signaling a mysterious end to her vertiginous ordeal without clear explanation.

Ruscha's essay, rich with psychological and physiological exploration, underscores the enigmatic nature of vertigo—both a medical condition and a profound personal experience.

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Conclusion: The Unseen Depths of Vertigo

Vertigogo masterfully intertwines scientific inquiry with human experience, revealing how deeply our brains influence our perception of the world. Through Liza Schoenfeld's scientific challenges and Rosemary Morton's literary voyage, Radiolab illuminates vertigo's multifaceted impact—both as a neurological condition and as a metaphor for internal disarray.

As Liza poignantly states, "[...] I'm still working with those mice. [...] I just really empathize with them," highlighting the delicate interplay between scientific exploration and personal empathy. Meanwhile, Rosemary's story serves as a haunting reminder of the brain's profound influence over reality, where "Some things just don't have explanations," reflecting the mysteries that continue to captivate and confound us.

Radiolab's innovative sound design and investigative storytelling invite listeners to ponder the intricate mechanisms of the brain, urging a deeper understanding of the invisible forces that shape our reality.

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Notable Quotes:

• Liza Schoenfeld [08:22]: "I couldn't stop it. I look surprised at everything I'm saying."

• Robert Krulwich [11:14]: "The drug had been doing to her pretty much what she'd been doing to those mice."

• Rosemary Morton [26:40]: "My trouble was a disturbance of the internal ear called labyrinthitis."

• Rosemary Morton [27:44]: "It's impossible to say exactly when it all ended, but I think it was Frank who really sensed at first."

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Radiolab continues to push the boundaries of storytelling and sound design, offering listeners an immersive exploration into the complexities of the human brain and beyond.

Transcript

[Sponsor Announcer]

Radiolab is supported by Dell.

[Robert Krulwich]

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[Sponsor Announcer]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Lulu Miller]

Listener Support WNYC Studios hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Lulu. I'm here with my brain. You are there with yours. And usually, you know, you and your brain have a kind of quiet agreement to just get along enough to go through your day. But every now and then you and your brain fall out of agreement and then you can slip into a kind of disorienting tilt, a whirly place. Well, today we have two stories for you about just that. People walking around with a new kind of vertigo. These stories come from the archives and we're calling today's show Vertigo. Go, go. So here we go.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wait, you're listening.

[Robert Krulwich]

See? All right.

[Lulu Miller]

Okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

All right.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You're listening to radio from wnyc.

[Jad Abumrad]

Rewind.

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab podcast and today on the podcast, a show about brains. Yes, a short time ago, we got an email from a listener in San Francisco.

[Robert Krulwich]

Something odd had happened to her and she wanted to share it with us.

[Jad Abumrad]

I missed. I didn't hit the record button fast enough. Could you just tell me your name again? And the.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

My name is Liza Schoenfeld and I'm a research technician at the Gladstone Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now, Liza is just getting started with her scientific career.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Finished my undergraduate degree about a year and a half ago.

[Jad Abumrad]

And this story takes place as she was about to take that next step after college and apply to grad schools.

[Robert Krulwich]

And the star of our story, other than, of course, Liza herself is a little mischievous. Part of her brain, well, everyone's brain.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Part of your brain called the basal ganglia.

[Jad Abumrad]

Basal ganglia, which at the time she'd been Studying.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

So basal ganglia is a fairly large part of your brain.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's actually this big hunk deep in.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

The center, and it's responsible for controlling and coordinating movement.

[Robert Krulwich]

When I move my neck back and forth, am I using my basal ganglia?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

When I make an expression in my face, am I using my basal ganglia?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Definitely.

[Jad Abumrad]

What about if I'm reading the New Yorker?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I don't think so.

[Robert Krulwich]

Apologies to the New Yorker and its employees.

[Jad Abumrad]

Point is, this part of your brain is really basic.

[Robert Krulwich]

And at the lab where she was working, they had figured out this particular.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Basal ganglia trick using this really cool technology called optogenetics.

[Jad Abumrad]

What they'd done is they'd found a way to take a mouse, thread a little fiber optic cable through its skull, deep into its brain, into its basal.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Ganglia, so that when you shine a blue laser. Literally, we just shine lasers into mouse brains.

[Jad Abumrad]

They could actually turn its basal ganglia, or parts of it, on or off.

[Robert Krulwich]

And this is in a live mouse?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

This is in a live mouse. So we have these really cool videos showing a mouse running around, having a great mouse time. You turn the light on, we can.

[Robert Krulwich]

Get him to freeze in mid stride.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you hit the laser, and boom, the mouse stops.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Mouse is like this.

[Jad Abumrad]

So use light to, like, puppetize the mouse.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

If you're this mouse, no matter how hard you try, move feet, move as long as that light is on.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Come on, Foof.

[Jad Abumrad]

You can't do it. Liza is holding the strings.

[Robert Krulwich]

Not exactly. It turns out she doesn't get to play with the laser that much.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I'm kind of like I'm the bottom of the totem pole. So I do a lot of pipetting.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's like, where you squirt liquid from one tube to another.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I'm working on my pipetting skills these days.

[Jad Abumrad]

Get the thumb muscles up.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Oh, I could beat anyone in the thumb wrestling competition right now.

[Jad Abumrad]

So at a certain point, she was like, enough of this time for me to apply to grad school.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah. I applied to five University of California, San Diego, University of Washington in Seattle, ucsf, Rockefeller University, and Harvard.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay, so you're going big. Yeah.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Go big or go home, Right?

[Jad Abumrad]

Exactly.

[Robert Krulwich]

So she heads off to her first interview.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

University of Washington went great. I loved it. Went down to UCSD in San Diego. It's a beautiful place, great scientists. It's actually the largest neuroscience community in the world.

[Jad Abumrad]

So far, so good.

[Robert Krulwich]

Did you ever go back to San Francisco, where we are now?

[Jad Abumrad]

This is where things get strange.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yes. So my last interview My very last interview was at ucsf.

[Jad Abumrad]

And she says, about a week before that interview, I got really sick.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Pretty severe nausea. I wasn't really able to eat or do anything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Throwing up?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah. Oh, all sorts of. I don't know. I had some bad dim sum the weekend before. That could have been it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, that's it. So she goes to the doctor, he gives her some pills to fight the nausea.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And then the next day was my interview. Friday was my interview. So I went. You know, there's a nice introduction. They give you breakfast.

[Jad Abumrad]

At this point, she's pretty familiar with the whole routine.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Generally, the way these interviews are structured is that we talk a little bit about my research in dopamine and the basal ganglia and these.

[Jad Abumrad]

They tell her about their work.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I have to think of a couple witty questions. I ask my questions.

[Jad Abumrad]

Anyhow, she's raring to go, and she heads in to meet her first basal gangliatician of the day.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And he studies. One of the things he studies is.

[Jad Abumrad]

Dopamine in the basal ganglia.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

He studies stuff that's a little bit more molecular than what I know. But we had a good conversation about dopamine. And at this point in the day, I was feeling okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

No nausea.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Then I went to my second interview, which is this woman that I was so excited to talk to. Her name is Allison Dope, and she's pretty well known.

[Robert Krulwich]

Her name is Alison Dope.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Allison Dope.

[Robert Krulwich]

Wow. And she studies dopamine.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

She studies songbirds.

[Jad Abumrad]

Songbirds, which is what Liza really wanted to study.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

So birds have basal ganglias, too.

[Jad Abumrad]

So she's pretty fired up.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And kind of at the beginning of that interview, my. My face started to feel a little bit strange. And I was wearing glasses that day. So what I thought was happening was that my glasses were. You know, your glasses get loose, and they kind of start to slip down your nose, and you have to kind of tighten the muscles around your ears to try and keep your glasses on. So we were talking. I just kept on feeling like, God, why can't I stop tightening that? It was kind of got to the point where it started to distract me, but I felt okay. Then we went to lunch. And this was a lunch with all the current students and a lot of the current faculty and all the prospective students. And at lunch, I remember on the walk to lunch, my head just started spontaneously turning to the right, like. Like I would be trying to sit here and face you, and I would just turn over here and face Robert.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's such a funny thing. Was Your neck moving. And you're like, no, neck. Don't do that neck.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

That's exactly what was happening. I was trying to send signals to my neck being like, all right, sitting here having lunch with an important professor. Why don't you just face him, talk to him? And instead I'm just turning over here, turning over here, turning over here.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, you're turning a fairly wide arc.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

You are turning away from the professor.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

So I remember at one point in lunch turning my chair like this so.

[Robert Krulwich]

I could see you're trying to rotate.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Toss him.

[Robert Krulwich]

A permanent sidelong glance.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

But she figured, must just be a cramp or something.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And I'm kind of thinking, oh, okay. So I slept funny last night. I must have slept on a weird angle on my pillow. Now I'm having a neck cramp. My glasses are loose. I just gotta tighten the glasses.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. Everything under control.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

So then I, after lunch, was going to go to my third interview was with Alison Dope's husband, who also studies songbirds. So he's familiar with the basal ganglia too.

[Jad Abumrad]

They meet up to walk over to his office together.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And so I explained to him on the walk over, I think I'm having neck cramps. Would it be possible maybe to try and get a hot pad?

[Robert Krulwich]

He says, sure, I may track one down.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

But on the walk, not only now does my neck start turning to the right, but it's snapping itself back involuntarily. Yeah, my head's snapping back like that.

[Jad Abumrad]

So you're suddenly your eyes are pointed up at the sky.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And then as I'm talking to him, I'm realizing that I can't control my eyebrows from. From raising pretty tightly. So I look.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like you're doing right now.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Like I'm doing right now.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you're in a state of deep surprise to read your teeth.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yes, Constant deep surprise.

[Robert Krulwich]

High eyebrows.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I can't stop it. I look surprised at everything I'm saying, and I can't stop it. So after the eyebrows start and I can't pull them back down, then the mouth, then all this area starts to go.

[Robert Krulwich]

The lower face.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

What is it doing?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

It turns into this really twisted, painful, grimacing smile.

[Jad Abumrad]

Would you mind demonstrating? I'll demo it.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I'll demo it. Okay. So I've got. The neck is like this crane back.

[Jad Abumrad]

The eyebrows are like this total surprise. His is a little bit like this crazy Frankenstein face.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is not obviously the best demeanor for a graduate interview.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

No. Yeah, it's not going well at that point.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now is Michael now Noticing that something is.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah, I think at that point he thought I was just really excited to be talking about neuroscience. And I'm just trying to think, okay, mouth, like, try and just calm down a little bit. And it was pretty painful, too. I mean, it was like, imagine like a Charlie Horse in your face. Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

But she gets through the interview.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I actually do okay. You know, he asks me tough questions about science, and I can answer them, I think. And I leave the interview. And then I'm met by the woman who's the head of the admissions weekend.

[Jad Abumrad]

And she took one look at Liza.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And she said, you know, I don't know if you should do the rest of your interviews. And with her is my student host.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Liza decides, all right, let me just call my dad.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Just to say, dad, I'm in the middle of my interview, and something kind of funny is happening with my face. I can't control it. And while I'm talking to him, I lose control of my mouth and my tongue. So I can't. I can kind of talk, but it's. It's pretty bad. Pretty bad.

[Robert Krulwich]

Is your dad a doctor?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

No. Imagine your kid calling you, being like, I'm losing control of my face. And as they're telling you that, I started to think something's really wrong. And then my student host comes rushing back in, running, and he looks at me, and he tries to put on a calm face, and he says, so now we need to go to the emergency room.

[Jad Abumrad]

So they throw into a taxi.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And in the taxi, it went from I can't control my mouth to a complete. I mean, a complete mouth palsied and a torque complete. I did not look good. As we're pulling up to the emergency room is when my throat started tightening up.

[Jad Abumrad]

They rush her inside, and they have.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Me in a gurney in a room in the back of the ER surrounded by six people within two minutes, doctors swarming all around, an oxygen mask, EKG leads all over my chest. They do an iv, and as she's.

[Robert Krulwich]

Lying there on the table, she's thinking, like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I control my throat? Why can't I control my body?

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And I just. I couldn't. I remember frantically sending messages like, you gotta cut this out now.

[Jad Abumrad]

But she wasn't in control. And it turned out that while she was going from interview to interview to interview, talking about how her lab had taken these little miceys and seized control of their basal ganglia, the Compazine that.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

I took, that nausea drug was actually affecting. Dopamine systems in my basal ganglia.

[Jad Abumrad]

In other words, that drug had been doing to her pretty much what she'd been doing to those mice.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

1 to 2% of people who take Compazine, they can have what's called an acute dystonia, which is what happened to.

[Jad Abumrad]

Me during all those interviews.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And the crazy thing is, the guy that I talked to first in the morning was the molecular dopamine guy. You know, how does dopamine get packed in the vesicles? How does it get released? And it wasn't until I started talking with the more systems level people who studied the behavioral output of the basal ganglia that I started to have behavioral deficits in my basal ganglia.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Robert Krulwich]

So your basal ganglia are testing the San Francisco docs, and they are failing in ischiatiss.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Did you get into San Francisco State? Ucsf are ucsf.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

No.

[Robert Krulwich]

No. Oh, damn it.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Basal ganglia.

[Jad Abumrad]

We should probably tell everybody that Liza's obviously doing okay. Back in the er, when the doctors finally figured out what was going on, they just gave her some Benadryl, of all things.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And actually, within 20 minutes, I was feeling a lot better.

[Jad Abumrad]

She could breathe, her face had unclenched. And when we asked her, how has this little adventure changed you? She said, well, I'm still working with those mice. Because when we talked to her, grad school hadn't started yet. And now when I go into that room with a little laser, I go.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

In now and I just really empathize with them.

[Robert Krulwich]

Come on, little Casper. This will just be for a couple of minutes.

[Jad Abumrad]

You can do it.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Yeah, I'm thinking a lot about that.

[Robert Krulwich]

Liza Schoenfeld is Now a proud PhD candidate at the University of Washington.

[Jad Abumrad]

And thanks to Brenna Farrell for production help on that story. I'm Jan Abumran.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krulvich.

[Jad Abumrad]

We'll be back.

[Lulu Miller]

All right, here I am.

[Jad Abumrad]

Ready to.

[Lulu Miller]

Ready to do it. My name is Annie McKeown, and I am a senior producer at this show, which basically just means that I, you know, spend many hours banging my head against, you know, the computer screen, but, you know, lovingly banging. The best part of my job is creating an immersive scene so you can, like, see it in your mind and feel it in your heart, and it doesn't even really matter what it is. It could be what it would be like to talk to a Neanderthal at a bar or a black hole moving through the earth. If it's done right, I can take you by the hand and lead you into this magical world that surprises you. If you enjoy venturing into these new worlds we create here at Radiolab, the best way to support us is by becoming a Lab member. To learn more about the Lab and our exclusive membership Perks, go to Radiolab.org join Radiolab.org join and thank you.

[Sponsor Announcer]

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[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'm Robert Krilwick.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab and Today Times, when you and your brain have a falling out, so to speak.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so Liza's disagreement with her brain didn't last very long. It was over within really, less than a day.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

But there are people who get into fusses with their heads that last longer. So here's a bigger, badder and broader story.

[Jad Abumrad]

Also, a true story comes from an essay written many years ago by a guy named Burton Ruscha, who's this great. I don't know, how would you describe him?

[Robert Krulwich]

Burton Ruscha? He was a great essayist. Journalism essayist.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah. And this essay was published in 1958 in the New Yorker. And it's kind of an interesting essay because it's essentially one long quote from this woman that Burdon interviewed, Rosemary Morton. It reads like a novel even though it's nonfiction. So we asked an actress who's been in some movies, Hope Davis, to read excerpts from Rosemary's story. The story begins on a normal night. Rosemary's at home with her husband, Frank, and everything's fine for the moment.

I'd been home about an hour. Dinner was ready and waiting in the oven. And I was sitting at the piano, not really playing, just amusing myself. That's something I often do at the end of the day. It helps me relax. My husband was in the kitchen making us a cocktail, which is another Morton custom. We usually have a drink or two before dinner. So everything was quite ordinary and normal until Frank came in with the drinks. I got up to join him on the sofa, and as I did, as I started across the room, I felt the floor sort of shake. Good heavens, I said. What was that? Frank just looked at me. His face was a perfect blank. He made some remark about old buildings stretching and settling, and handed me my drink.

So she doesn't really think too much of this, because it was very momentary.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay.

[Jad Abumrad]

But a week later, she's at work. She's actually in the library because she's a librarian. She's at her desk.

I worked at my desk for about an hour. And it was heaven. So quiet, so peaceful. Then I got up to get a book from the stacks or a drink of water or something, and it happened. The floor gave a shake and sank. It went down and up, just one lurch, maybe a little more pronounced than the first time, and then everything was back to normal. Except for my state of mind. I didn't know what to think. The best I could do Was tell myself that this was an old building too. It was built around 19, 1900.

So that was your sense at first, just old buildings.

It never occurred to me that there might be any other explanation.

But then, over the next few days, very odd things begin to happen.

I don't know how to describe it, but I had the feeling that my sense of touch was getting more and more acute, especially in the soles of my feet. I could feel little tremors that other people couldn't. I didn't tell Frank until the middle of the following week. On Wednesday night, to be exact. By then I had to. I couldn't keep it to myself any longer. There was something wrong with me. There just wasn't any word for the awful sensations I'd been having. The floor shaking feeling was only one of them. I don't know how many times that happened over the weekend, seven or eight at least. But even that began to have a different feeling. At first, the floor had moved or sagged. As a whole, it still did. Only now I could feel another movement too. A kind of counterpoint. Sometimes it was as if I were sinking into the floor. The room would tilt and I'd take a step and the floor was like snow. It would give under my foot and I would sink. And other times it was just the reverse of floor would rise up to meet me. By then, it wasn't simply the floor that moved. When the floor tilted, the walls of the room tilted with it and the ceiling. I mean, the shape of the room never changed, only its position in space.

So Rosemary went to see her doctor. Her doctor sent her to some specialists and they ran some tests. And then a short while later, she went back to her doctor to get the results.

He'd read me their conclusions and they were all the same. They even used the same phrase, impression. Essentially normal. I'll never forget that phrase. Normal. Essentially normal. It sounds so reassuring, so comforting. But it isn't. At least it wasn't to me. It was terrifying.

After this diagnosis or non diagnosis, things really take a turn. Fast forward a few months.

There were times in March and early April when I was absolutely certain I was going to die. But my reaction to death was peculiar. I don't remember feeling afraid. All I remember is an overwhelming sense of urgency. So little time, so little done, so much I wanted to do. I dragged Frank to the theatre more than once, and I never thought of refusing when he suggested the Philharmonic or the Metropolitan. My response to music had never been so complete. I spent hours listening to records. I'd play Some old favorite, like Beecham conducting Haydn's London Symphony. And it was amazing. It seemed to me that I could hear the inner structure more clearly than ever before. So the idea of a dinner and a concert, it wasn't at all unusual. My only mistake was to take that dreadful underground passage. It was raining, and I was in a hurry. But even so, I should have realized. When I did, it was too late. The passage was jammed with commuters, shoving and pushing and surging toward me. But I didn't dare turn back. The floor was beginning to wobble, and I knew if I tried to swing around, it would tip me head over heels. All I could do was go on. The traffic was still all against me. People kept looming up, towering up. They came charging at me like giants. And then I felt something right out of a nightmare. I was almost at the end of the passage when I felt the movement change. It was as if someone had pulled a lever. There was a little jolt, and the floor was moving very slowly backward down the passage. I was walking on a treadmill. Only for a minute, though. Then I reached the stairs. I drove myself up to the lobby and collapsed in a chair. I was jelly. From early April, I began to move in a different world. I was conscious of a new dimension, a new plane. I had a new relationship to space. My legs, my arms, my face, my whole body felt different. It had no permanent shape. It changed by the minute. I seemed to be completely at the mercy of some outside force, some atmospheric pressure. I was amorphous. My left leg would seem to lengthen, or my right arm or my neck, or one whole side of me would double or treble in size. And yet that doesn't fully describe it. There were times when the force seemed to be the rotation of the Earth. I would have the feeling that I was vertically aligned with the Earth's axis. I could feel a sort of winding movement start up inside me. Then one of my legs would begin to shorten as if it were an anchor being drawn slowly up by a winch. The other leg would dangle. After a minute, the winch would shift. It would engage the dangling leg and just as slowly bring it up to match the other.

[Robert Krulwich]

This feels like some kind of a nightmare cartoon of some kind.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

So? So what? What is it? What is wrong with her?

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, after months of this, at the end of the essay, she does finally learn that this condition she has has a name.

My trouble was a disturbance of the internal ear called labyrinthitis.

[Robert Krulwich]

Labyrinth?

[Jad Abumrad]

The suffix itis meant inflammation, swelling. So the meaning of Labyrinthitis, as a word, was simply an inflammation of the oral labyrinth.

[Robert Krulwich]

You know, I think people in science and medicine love to give big fat names to. I don't know.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, actually, this condition, you should know, goes by another name.

[Robert Krulwich]

What?

[Jad Abumrad]

Vertigo.

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's why I like the story. Because, like, I didn't know. I mean, like, I always thought of Vertigo. Like from the movie.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Like you're on the stairs and you're like, woo. Like it's just a thing with heights, you know, like that's what it was in the Hitchcock film. But what Rosemary Morton goes through in this story, it's like, seems way deeper. And at some point in the essay, she actually refers to her situation as a case of gravitational anarchy.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's an interesting phrase.

[Jad Abumrad]

Phrase I kind of. I kind of like.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah. Well, does she get better?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yep.

It's impossible to say exactly when it all ended, but I think it was Frank who really sensed at first. It was after dinner one night in late August, and he suddenly smiled and remarked that I must be feeling much better. I asked him what he meant. You never look scared anymore, he said.

It's very mysterious. But her vertigo just went away. Poof.

[Robert Krulwich]

Without explanation for the coming and no explanation for the going.

[Jad Abumrad]

Some things just don't have explanations, Robert. But they have wonderful sound design, and that's Radiolab. No explanations. Pretty sounds.

[Robert Krulwich]

I'd buy a ticket to that, Mr. Jeekers. I'm crazy for sound design. Speaking of not knowing anything.

[Jad Abumrad]

Thanks to Burton Ruscha. Well, he's not alive anymore, but you can find his story essentially normal in the awesome book Medical Detectives, which was published in 1984 by Dutton. Our sincere thanks to actress Hope Davis and to Sarah Montague and Ellen Horn for directing Hope in the studio. And thanks to Tim Howard and Douglas Smith for the scoring help with that piece. And lastly, thanks to you for listening.

Hey, I'm Lemon and I'm from Richmond, Indiana, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Dylan Keith is our director, Director of Sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyan Sambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Sarah Sandbach, Anisa Vitza, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Martin Middleton.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Hi, my name is Tresa. I'm calling from Colchester in Essex, uk.

[Jad Abumrad]

Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

Provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore.

[Jad Abumrad]

Foundation Science Sandbox, the Siemens Foundation Initiative.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

And the John Templeton Foundation.

[Jad Abumrad]

Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by.

[Liza Schoenfeld]

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

[Jad Abumrad]

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