October 19, 2024: My Ear Can Wiggle

This week, for the first time to my knowledge my left earlobe wiggled. At least, I think it did. Many times, I felt it twitching randomly. The earlobe is so thin that I assume that the twitching is visible. It occurs daily and lasts seconds or minutes. I have told Lois and my caregiver about the twitching and asked them to try video it so I can see what it looks like. So far, we have no video.

Dogs, cats, and many other animals can perk up their ears voluntarily to direct their hearing. During evolution, humans have lost this ability although a few people can wiggle their ears as a parlor trick.

I spent my career observing people’s muscles, looking at bulk and movement, testing strength, and checking intrinsic electrical activity of muscles with an EMG needle. I still remember the action and innervation of numerous muscles, but I paid scant attention to the small, usually immobile muscles of the human outer ear.

I have a strong suspicion of why my earlobe twitches, but I wanted to read the medical literature on involuntary ear movements. These are quite rare; I have never seen them, but I found reports of ear dyskinesia, synkinesis, tics, and myoclonus. I know enough about these phenomena in other muscles that I am confident that they do not explain my twitches. I believe that the twitches are fasciculations due to degeneration of neurons in my facial nerve. I do not need to have an EMG of my earlobe to prove this. For some time, I have felt fasciculations in my lips, which are also supplied by the facial nerve.

The earlobe wiggles have no therapeutic, functional, or prognostic importance. I imagine them as a caprice of ALS, a parlor trick by the disease to edify and amuse me.