They wiggle, though they don’t do much else. That’s what we’ve long thought about the auricular muscles — the useless ear muscles that once helped our ancient ancestors hear. But recent research in Frontiers in Neuroscience reveals that these muscles are still trying hard to help us, activating during difficult listening situations.
“There are three large muscles [that] connect the auricle [the outer ear] to the skull and scalp,” said Andreas Schröer, a study author and a neuroscientist at Saarland University in Germany, in a press release. “These muscles, particularly the superior auricular muscle, exhibit increased activity during effortful listening tasks.”
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