A Case Study of Severe Space Motion Sickness.

Space sickness symptoms were observed by 4 specially trained observers on Spacelab-1. Three reported persistent symptoms, and vomited repeatedly during the first and/or second day of flight. Head movements on all axes were provocative, particularly in pitch and roll. Head acceleration data recorded from 2 symptomatic crewmen showed that after several hours of physical activity in orbit, symptoms appeared, and thereafter both crewmen were compelled to limit head movements. Firm body contact with motionless surfaces helped alleviate symptoms. When crewmembers floated into unfamiliar body orientations in the cabin, inherent ambiguities in static visual orientation cues sometimes produced spatial reorientation episodes which were also provocative. Symptoms largely resembled those of other forms of prolonged motion sickness, superimposed upon other symptoms attributable to fluid shift. All 4 eventually used anti-motion sickness drugs. When they did, vomiting frequency was reduced. By the 4th day, symptoms subsided, and head accelerations again increased in magnitude and variability. Sickness intensity in orbit was not predicted by statistically concordant results of 6 acute preflight susceptibility tests. However, results from a longer duration preflight prism goggles test showed an apparent correlation. All subjects were asymptomatic making head movements in parabolic flight 4 days after the mission, but not 1 year later. Overall, results support the view that space sickness is a motion sickness.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a preferred imaging technology in ophthalmology for diagnosis and management of eye disease. Standard-of-care clinical OCT systems require patients to sit upright, brace their head against the instrument, and fix their gaze into its sensing aperture. These limitations exclude those with involuntary head and eye movements, such as those present in Parkinson's disease and nystagmus, respectively, from undergoing OCT imaging. To overcome these restrictions, we combine our robotic OCT paradigm, which allows flexible patient positioning during imaging, with active cancellation of periodic motion to reduce image artifact during acquisition. We accomplish this by measuring eye motion with on-board pupil cameras, fitting the movement profile in real-time, and augmenting OCT scan waveforms using the predicted eye position. We evaluate this predictive imaging scheme with eye phantoms to precisely simulate motions typical of head and eye movement disorders and compare it to real-time scan aiming. Using registration shift in captured OCT images to quantify residual motion artifact, we demonstrate motion reduction by up to 98.5 % for typical nystagmus frequencies and an average 3.4 × reduction in residual motion compared to scan aiming alone. This approach may provide access to accurate OCT imaging for those with involuntary eye and head movement.

Relationship between selected orientation rest frame, circular vection and space motion sickness

Two part-task preflight adaptation trainers (PATs) are being developed at the NASA Johnson Space Center to preadapt astronauts to novel sensory stimulus conditions similar to those present in microgravity to facilitate adaptation to microgravity and readaptation to Earth. This activity is a major component of a general effort to develop countermeasures aimed at minimizing sensory and sensorimotor disturbances and Space Motion Sickness (SMS) associated with adaptation to microgravity and readaptation to Earth. Design principles for the development of the two trainers are discussed, along with a detailed description of both devices. In addition, a summary of four ground-based investigations using one of the trainers to determine the extent to which various novel sensory stimulus conditions produce changes in compensatory eye movement responses, postural equilibrium, motion sickness symptoms, and electrogastric responses are presented. Finally, a brief description of the general concept of dual-adapted states that underly the development of the PATs, and ongoing and future operational and basic research activities is presented.

The ability to accurately control our posture and perceive our spatial orientation during self-motion requires knowledge of the motion of both the head and body. However, while the vestibular sensors and nuclei directly encode head motion, no sensors directly encode body motion. Instead, the integration of vestibular and neck proprioceptive inputs is necessary to transform vestibular information into the body-centric reference frame required for postural control. The anterior vermis of the cerebellum is thought to play a key role in this transformation, yet how its Purkinje cells transform multiple streams of sensory information into an estimate of body motion remains unknown. Here, we recorded the activity of individual anterior vermis Purkinje cells in alert monkeys during passively applied whole-body, body-under-head, and head-on-body rotations. Most Purkinje cells dynamically encoded an intermediate representation of self-motion between head and body motion. Notably, Purkinje cells responded to both vestibular and neck proprioceptive stimulation with considerable heterogeneity in their response dynamics. Furthermore, their vestibular responses were tuned to head-on-body position. In contrast, targeted neurons in the deep cerebellar nuclei are known to unambiguously encode either head or body motion across conditions. Using a simple population model, we established that combining responses of~40-50 Purkinje cells could explain the responses of these deep cerebellar nuclei neurons across all self-motion conditions. We propose that the observed heterogeneity in Purkinje cell response dynamics underlies the cerebellum's capacity to compute the dynamic representation of body motion required to ensure accurate postural control and perceptual stability in our daily lives.

Motion sickness occurs when man is expected to certain types of real or apparent motion. The signs and symptoms are malaise, pallor, cold sweating, nausea and vomiting. According to the sensory conflict theory, neural mismatch among the actual sensory input from the eyes, the vestibular apparatus and the somatosensory receptors and the signals expected to be received in the central nervous system causes motion sickness.We developed a rat model and examined the roles of histamine, acetylcholine and noradrenaline in the development of motion sickness. We conclude that 1) histamine plays a role in the onset of the disorder; 2) acetylcholine is involved in the sensory conflict mechanisms; 3) noradrenaline modulates the sensory information.Space motion sickness is generally regarded as a variation of the common type of motion sickness. Here, we introduce three hypothese of space motion sickness and explain the results of space vestibular experiments on space motion sickness in the Skylab mission and Spacelab-1 mission.

Motion sickness and otolith sensitivity: a pilot study of habituation to linear acceleration : A. R. Potvin, M. Sadoff and J. Billingham 1977 Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine48(11), 1068–1975. (8 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, 30 references)

The stability of individual patterns of autonomic responses to motion sickness stimulation : P. S. Cowings, K. H. Naifeh and W. B. Toscano 1990 Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine61(5), 399–405. (7 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables, 22 references) (in English)

Nausogenic properties of various dynamic and static force environments

Background Motion sickness affects at least one third of the population, varying in degree of individual sensitivity and severity. Sensory mismatch between vestibular, visual and proprioceptive inputs with the cognitive visuospatial map is the primary theory for its occurrence. Whilst stimulus avoidance and medication are common treatment, neurovestibular habituation is often overlooked as therapy in civilian patients. A 55-year-old woman presented with her two adult children with a life-long history of severe motion sickness. Significant anticipatory anxiety accompanied with nausea would begin prior to boarding, triggered by the smell of airline food and jet fuel. In flight, dizziness and severe recurrent vomiting would occur, often leading to incapacitation and pre-syncope. Specialist investigation found no underlying vestibular or neurological disorder. A multi-agent pharmaceutical approach with neurovestibular habituation exercises allowed the patient to undertake a multi-stage international airline travel without significant illness. Her daughter reported similar improvement on medication alone. Following a break in habituation exercises and without the medication, the symptoms reoccurred on a future flight. Motion sickness is often treated as a vestibular condition in isolation without consideration of the neuropsychological aspects. Conditioning to environmental cues including smells along anticipatory anxiety may trigger symptoms of motion sickness in absence of motion cues. Multi-agent pharmaceutical therapy may be more effective than single agents alone. Neurovestibular habituation exercises are low cost but effective means of producing tolerance of motion cues with symptom reduction. This can be sustained with ongoing environmental exposure.

Interest for motion sickness is increasing with increasing opportunities to view digital devices in transportation systems, including automated vehicles. Hence, technology for predicting and estimating motion sickness is essential. As one such technology, computational models for estimating motion sickness from head movements have been proposed and are used for motion sickness evaluation. However, a model capable of handling the effects of visual input and the visual-vestibular interaction for motions with six-degrees-of-freedom has yet to be developed. In this study, therefore, a computational model of motion sickness with visual-vestibular inputs is proposed by extending a model of the subjective vertical conflict theory of motion sickness for a vestibular input only. The proposed model inputs are the acceleration and angular velocity of the head and the visual perception of the angular velocity. A simulation conducted by inputting 1 h of sinusoidal oscillations demonstrated that the results are consistent with those of similar experiments conducted with human participants. In addition, the results of a simulation experiment conducted by changing the visual input demonstrated that motion sickness increases significantly when a conflict occurs between the visual and vestibular signals, which imitates the reading of a book in a moving car. Furthermore, we developed a method to calculate the predicted MSI using experimental data measured by IMU and camera image by approximating the visual perception of the angular velocity through an optical flow analysis. The results of inputting camera images and inertial measurement unit signals obtained by sine-wave-like pitching motion into the proposed model demonstrate that the proposed method, can describe the difference in motion sickness by the changes in the visual environment.

Event Abstract Back to Event Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster Bart R. Geurten1*, Philipp Jähde1 and Martin C. Göpfert1 1 Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Germany Drosophila melanogaster like many other insects organises its locomotion in prolonged phases of translational movement that are interspersed by fast rotations called saccades. This saccadic locomotion strategy, which is found in insects and vertebrates (Collett and Land 1975; Boeddeker et al. 2010; Ribak, Egge, and Swallow 2009; Geurten et al. 2010; Eckmeier et al. 2008) is believed to enhance the 3D-information in visual perception. Schilstra and van Hateren documented that the head of blowflies rotates even faster than the body (Schilstra and Hateren 1999; Hateren and Schilstra 1999), further reducing the effective duration of the saccade. We tracked freely walking Drosophila melanogaster and found that they intersperse translational movements with fast saccadic rotations, similar as reported for blowflies by Blaj and van Hateren (Blaj and Van Hateren 2004). Reconstructing the head and body movements from high-speed recordings revealed that unlike blowflies, Drosophila does not move its head relative to the thorax during the saccades, which thus represent pure ‘body’ saccades. Even though single saccadic movements of the head were observed, saccadic yaw movements seem to be governed by a different behavioural strategy than in walking Calliphora. By modelling the visual input, we found that unlike blowflies, Drosophila would not profit from additional head rotations because of the lower spatial acuity of its eyes. This explains why Drosophila performs pure body saccades – during walking and presumably also during flight. References Blaj, G, and J H van Hateren. 2004. “Saccadic Head and Thorax Movements in Freely Walking Blowflies.” Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology 190 (11) (November): 861–868. Boeddeker, Norbert, Laura Dittmar, Wolfgang Stürzl, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “The Fine Structure of Honeybee Head and Body Yaw Movements in a Homing Task.” Proceedings. Biological Sciences / The Royal Society 277 (1689) (June 22): 1899–1906. Collett, T.S., and M.F. Land. 1975. “Visual Control of Flight Behaviour in the Hoverfly Syritta Pipiens L.” Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology V99 (1) (March): 1–66. Eckmeier, D., B.R.H. Geurten, D. Kress, M. Mertes, R. Kern, M. Egelhaaf, and H.J. Bischof. 2008. “Gaze Strategy in the Free Flying Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia Guttata).” PLoS ONE 3 (12) (December): e3956. Geurten, Bart R. H., Roland Kern, Elke Braun, and Martin Egelhaaf. 2010. “A Syntax of Hoverfly Flight Prototypes.” Journal of Experimental Biology 213 (14) (July 15): 2461–2475. Hateren, JH, and C Schilstra. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow. II. Head Movements During Flight.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June 1): 1491–1500. Ribak, Gal, Alison R. Egge, and John G. Swallow. 2009. “Saccadic Head Rotations During Walking in the Stalk-eyed Fly (Cyrtodiopsis Dalmanni).” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Schilstra, C., and J.H. van Hateren. 1999. “Blowfly Flight and Optic Flow I. Thorax Kinematics and Flight Dynamics.” Journal of Experimental Biology 202 (11) (June): 1481–1490. Keywords: motion vision, Drosophila melanogaster, saccade, Neuroethology, Visual Acuity Conference: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision, Fjälkinge, Sweden, 1 Aug - 8 Aug, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster presentation preferred Topic: Motion vision Citation: Geurten BR, Jähde P and Göpfert MC (2019). Head – Body coordination in Drosophila melanogaster. Front. Physiol. Conference Abstract: International Conference on Invertebrate Vision. doi: 10.3389/conf.fphys.2013.25.00055 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 28 Feb 2013; Published Online: 09 Dec 2019. * Correspondence: Dr. Bart R Geurten, Georg-August University of Göttingen, Department of Cellular Neurobiology, Göttingen, 37077, Germany, bgeurte@gwdg.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Google Scholar Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert PubMed Bart R Geurten Philipp Jähde Martin C Göpfert Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Passengers are more susceptible to experiencing motion sickness (MS) than drivers. The difference in the severity of MS is due to their different head movement behavior during curve driving. When negotiating a curve, the passengers tilt their heads towards the lateral acceleration direction while the drivers tilt their heads against it. Thus, to reduce the passengers’ level of MS, they need to reduce their head’s tilting angle towards the lateral acceleration direction. Designing MS minimization strategies is easier if the correlation between the head movement and lateral acceleration is known mathematically. Therefore, this paper proposes the utilization of a time delay neural network (TDNN) to model the correlation of the occupant’s head movement and lateral acceleration. An experiment was conducted to gather real-time data for the modeling process. The results show that TDNN manages to model the correlation by producing a similar output response to the actual response. Thus, it is expected that the correlation model could be used as an occupant’s head movement predictor tool in future studies of MS.

Analysis of eye movements recorded with a mobile eye-tracker is difficult since the eye-tracking data are severely affected by simultaneous head and body movements. Automatic analysis methods developed for remote-, and tower-mounted eye-trackers do not take this into account and are therefore not suitable to use for data where also head- and body movements are present. As a result, data recorded with a mobile eye-tracker are often analyzed manually. In this work, we investigate how simultaneous recordings of eye- and head movements can be employed to isolate the motion of the eye in the eye-tracking data. We recorded eye-in-head movements with a mobile eye-tracker and head movements with an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). Preliminary results show that by compensating the eye-tracking data with the estimated head orientation, the standard deviation of the data during vestibular-ocular reflex (VOR) eye movements, was reduced from 8.0° to 0.9° in the vertical direction and from 12.9° to 0.6° in the horizontal direction. This suggests that a head compensation algorithm based on IMU data can be used to isolate the movements of the eye and therefore simplify the analysis of data recorded using a mobile eye-tracker.

I would like to tell readers about my recent experience of auriculotherapy. After taking off from Merignac, the plane flew in parabolic arcs (figure 1), executing 31 of these in the space of 3 h at an altitude of 10 km. A parabolic flight includes three phases: Figure 1 The different phases of a parabolic flight (downloaded from http://www.eurospacecenter.be). Finally, the plane follows a normal trajectory for 2 min, a period of time that is necessary for piloting reasons and to allow the passengers to recover. After this, the plane begins the next parabolic arc (figure 1). Three fighter pilots take turns piloting, as it is physically too difficult for a single pilot to carry out the entire parabolic flight on his own. Space sickness is extremely violent, and I had never experienced anything like it before. It is in no way comparable to sea or motion sickness. One enters a ‘state of shock’ with a drop in arterial pressure, motionlessness, a pale grey face and sudden uncontrollable vomiting. Those not affected ‘fly’ to the rescue of …