Any particular reason a mouse would mindlessly run in circles?

[Red Baron Farms]

Maybe it's a marker for self awareness?

Make animals dizzy, the ones that realize something is wrong and try to correct for it, pass.
Little mousey here, doesn't.

That's actually a pretty good concept. We could potentially think of other explanations too though? Like a more basic hard wired fight or flight response? In full panic mode maybe the mouse just spins, but as he calms down the tight curves stretch out and eventually reach a drunken walk with correction stage after the mouse completely relaxes?

And this way we have two explanations and a way to test each hypothesis. hmmmm

 

[bruto]

I'm reminded of one of those nonsense riddles, which I think has even come up here in the past, "why is a mouse when it spins?" The answer being more nonsense, of course, but now I'm wondering if the origin of the silliness comes from people actually observing mice when they spin.