0000000000405039
AUTHOR
Rudolf J. Von Baumgarten
Transition from self tilt to object tilt during maintained lateral tilt in parabolic flight.
Abstract 19 young healthy subjects were subjected to parabolic rollercoaster flight. A horizontal luminous line was seen by the subjects in a headfixed goggle device. During the hypergravic phases of parabolic flight the luminous line seemed to rotate into and during the hypogravic phase against the direction of static head tilt. Ocular counter rotation and activity of the neck position receptors cannot explain these subjective rotations. We conclude that information from the otolith system, converging with visual information within the brain, dislocated the headfixed visual target line. While the retinal image of the luminous line remains unchanged, loading and unloading the otoliths in pa…
Effect of water immersion on post-rotatory and caloric nystagmus.
Caloric nystagmus and post-rotatory nystagmus were recorded with and without head-out water immersion. As water immersion reduces body weight by about 90% owing to buoyancy, it decreases somatosensory inputs. Thus water immersion can be used to simulate a weightless environment. Caloric nystagmus was enhanced significantly by water immersion; however, post-rotatory nystagmus was not. These findings demonstrate that caloric nystagmus is easily affected by water immersion which decreases somatosensory inputs, but that post-rotatory nystagmus is not.