Vestibular Responses and Motion Sickness during Pitch, Roll, and Yaw Sinusoidal Whole-Body Oscillation.

The vestibulo-ocular reflex and motion sickness were evaluated in 5 groups of 15 men during low frequency sinusiodal whole-body oscillation about an earth-vertical axis. Head and body configurations differed between groups so that the amount of vertical canal stimulation received was varied over groups. Significant differences were found for the long time constant of the vestibulo- ocular reflex between pitch- and roll-axis stimuli. The long constant is short for the pitch axis, intermediate for the roll axis, and long for the yaw axis. Motion sickness appeared to be related to the amount of vertical semicircular canal simulation received, with no clear difference between roll-axis and pitch- axis groups. Keywords Motion sickness, Vestibulo-ocular reflex, Nystagmus, Sine waves, Angular acceleration, Pitch, Sinusoidal oscillation, Roll, Whole body motion, Yaw, VOR. JG