Evidence of sensory conflict and recovery in carp exposed to prolonged weightlessness.
BACKGROUND
Evidence in support of the sensory conflict hypothesis for space motion sickness (SMS) is still needed.


OBJECTIVE
We hypothesized that sensory conflict and recovery processes should be demonstrated in intact fish during initial days of microgravity exposure, as a disturbance and restoration of the dorsal light response (DLR; a functional model of visual-graviceptor interaction), respectively. We also expected that this would be true in an otolith-removed fish if it had been fully compensated for dysfunction before the exposure.


METHODS
The DLR of carp (Cyprinus carpio) was examined intermittently during the 8-d mission of Spacelab-J. Two carp, normal and labyrinthectomized (LB), made the flight.


RESULTS
In the normal carp, the DLR was unstable for the first 3 d inflight but gradually recovered thereafter. The recovery was characterized by gradual restoration of the DLR tilt speed. The LB fish whose otoliths had been removed 2 mo before the flight maintained DLR at the first inflight test session (22 h after launch), but DLR was disrupted at 2 d as in normal fish. The recovery process could not be evaluated in this fish, because the EEG cable which was attached to the fish for supplementary study became tightly twisted and thus immobilized the fish for the remainder of the experiment.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings provided additional evidence in fish for sensory-motor disorder and readjustment during the early phase of microgravity, thus supporting the sensory conflict hypothesis for SMS.
Mori
S
S
Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, Nagoya University, Japan.
Mitarai
G
G
Takabayashi
A
A
Usui
S
S
Sakakibara
M
M
Nagatomo
M
M
von Baumgarten
R J
RJ
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D002347:Carps / Q000502:physiology*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D008027:Light; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology*; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology*; D018489:Space Motion Sickness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014893:Weightlessness