Prevalence, Predictors, and Prevention of Motion Sickness in Zero-G Parabolic Flights.

INTRODUCTION: Zero-G parabolic flight reproduces the weightlessness of space for short periods. However, motion sickness may affect some fliers. The aim was to assess the extent of this problem and to find possible predictors and modifying factors. METHODS: Airbus zero-G flights consist of 31 parabolas performed in blocks. Each parabola consisted of 20 s of 0 g sandwiched by 20 s of hypergravity of 1.5-1.8 g. The survey covered N = 246 person-flights (193 men, 53 women), ages (M ± SD) 36.0 ± 11.3 yr. An anonymous questionnaire included motion sickness rating (1 = OK to 6 = vomiting), Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ), antimotion sickness medication, prior zero-G experience, anxiety level, and other characteristics. RESULTS: Participants had lower MSSQ percentile scores (27.4 ± 28.0) than the population norm of 50. Motion sickness was experienced by 33% and 12% vomited. Less motion sickness was predicted by older age, greater prior zero-G flight experience, medication with scopolamine, lower MSSQ scores, but not gender or anxiety. Sickness ratings in fliers pretreated with scopolamine (1.81 ± 1.58) were lower than for nonmedicated fliers (2.93 ± 2.16), and incidence of vomiting in fliers using scopolamine treatment was reduced by half to a third. Possible confounding factors including age, sex, flight experience, and MSSQ could not account for this. CONCLUSION: Motion sickness affected one-third of zero-G fliers despite being intrinsically less motion sickness susceptible compared to the general population. Susceptible individuals probably try to avoid such a provocative environment. Risk factors for motion sickness included younger age and higher MSSQ scores. Protective factors included prior zero-G flight experience (habituation) and antimotion sickness medication.Golding JF, Paillard AC, Normand H, Besnard S, Denise P. Prevalence, predictors, and prevention of motion sickness in zero-G parabolic flights. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2017; 88(1):3-9.

Visual inference of arm movement is constrained by motor representations.

Several studies support the idea that motion inference is strongly motor dependent. In the present study, we address the role of biomechanical constraints in motion prediction and how this implicit knowledge can interfere in a spatial prediction task. Right-handed (RHS) and left-handed subjects (LHS) had to estimate the final position of a horizontal arm movement in which the final part of the trajectory was hidden. Our study highlighted a direction effect: end point prediction accuracy was better to infer the final position of horizontal motion directed toward the median line of human body. This finding suggests that the spatial prediction of end point is mapped onto implicit biomechanical knowledge such as joint limitation. Accordingly, motor repertoires are embodied into spatial prediction tasks.

Sensorial countermeasures for vestibular spatial disorientation.

Spatial disorientation is defined as an erroneous body orientation perceived by pilots during flights. Limits of the vestibular system provoke frequent spatial disorientation mishaps. Although vestibular spatial disorientation is experienced frequently in aviation, there is no intuitive countermeasure against spatial disorientation mishaps to date. The aim of this review is to describe the current sensorial countermeasures and to examine future leads in sensorial ergonomics for vestibular spatial disorientation. This work reviews: 1) the visual ergonomics, 2) the vestibular countermeasures, 3) the auditory displays, 4) the somatosensory countermeasures, and, finally, 5) the multisensory displays. This review emphasizes the positive aspects of auditory and somatosensory countermeasures as well as multisensory devices. Even if some aspects such as sensory conflict and motion sickness need to be assessed, these countermeasures should be taken into consideration for ergonomics work in the future. However, a recent development in aviation might offer new and better perspectives: unmanned aerial vehicles. Unmanned aerial vehicles aim to go beyond the physiological boundaries of human sensorial systems and would allow for coping with spatial disorientation and motion sickness. Even if research is necessary to improve the interaction between machines and humans, this recent development might be incredibly useful for decreasing or even stopping vestibular spatial disorientation.

Vestibular receptors contribute to cortical auditory evoked potentials.

Acoustic sensitivity of the vestibular apparatus is well-established, but the contribution of vestibular receptors to the late auditory evoked potentials of cortical origin is unknown. Evoked potentials from 500 Hz tone pips were recorded using 70 channel EEG at several intensities below and above the vestibular acoustic threshold, as determined by vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs). In healthy subjects both auditory mid- and long-latency auditory evoked potentials (AEPs), consisting of Na, Pa, N1 and P2 waves, were observed in the sub-threshold conditions. However, in passing through the vestibular threshold, systematic changes were observed in the morphology of the potentials and in the intensity dependence of their amplitude and latency. These changes were absent in a patient without functioning vestibular receptors. In particular, for the healthy subjects there was a fronto-central negativity, which appeared at about 42 ms, referred to as an N42, prior to the AEP N1. Source analysis of both the N42 and N1 indicated involvement of cingulate cortex, as well as bilateral superior temporal cortex. Our findings are best explained by vestibular receptors contributing to what were hitherto considered as purely auditory evoked potentials and in addition tentatively identify a new component that appears to be primarily of vestibular origin.

Thresholds for vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) produced by impulsive transmastoid acceleration.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate methods for estimating thresholds of vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) and ocular VEMPs (OVEMPs) produced by impulsive transmastoid acceleration (ITA). DESIGN: VEMPs and OVEMPs were obtained simultaneously from subjects in supine posture with both head and eyes elevated. Thresholds to ITA were measured using four different response identification methods. STUDY SAMPLE: Twelve adult subjects with no history of auditory or vestibular deficits. RESULTS: VEMP and OVEMP thresholds were found within the range of -8 to -26 dB re 0.2 g, with overall VEMP thresholds being lower than OVEMP thresholds by average of 3-10 dB, depending on the method used. CONCLUSION: VEMPs can be obtained at lower ITA stimulation levels than OVEMPs. Threshold values depend on the method used to define response presence.

Contributions of ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials and the electrooculogram to periocular potentials produced by whole-body vibration.

In this paper we report the results of an experiment to investigate the emergence of ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (OVEMPs) during the linear vestibular ocular reflex (LVOR) evoked by whole-body vibration (WBV). OVEMP and electrooculogram (EOG) montages were employed to record periocular potentials (POPs) from six subjects during WBV in the nasooccipital (NO) axis over a range of frequencies from 0.5 to 64 Hz with approximately constant peak head acceleration of 1.0 ms(-2) (i.e., 0.1 g). Measurements were made in two context conditions: a fixation context to examine the effect of gaze eccentricity (0 vs. 20°), and a visual context, where a target was either head-fixed or earth-fixed. The principal results are that from 0.5 to 2 Hz POP magnitude in the earth-fixed condition is related to head displacement, so with constant acceleration at all frequencies it reduces with increasing frequency, but at frequencies greater than 2 Hz both POP magnitude and POP gain, defined as the ratio of POP magnitude at 20 and 0°, increase with increasing frequency. By exhibiting this high-pass characteristic, a property shared with the LVOR, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that the OVEMP, as commonly employed in the clinical setting, is a high-frequency manifestation of the LVOR. However, we also observed low-frequency acceleration following POPs in head-fixed conditions, consistent with a low-frequency OVEMP, and found evidence of a high-frequency visual context effect, which is also consistent with the OVEMP being a manifestation of the LVOR.