Habituation to galvanic vestibular stimulation for analysis of susceptibility to carsickness.
OBJECTIVE
In a previous study we developed a standardized procedure for a reproducible quantification of galvanic-induced body sway (GBS). In line with other reports, GBS shows short-term (fast) habituation upon stimulus repetition. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the degree of short-term habituation to galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is correlated with susceptibility to carsickness.


METHODS
A total of 24 female subjects underwent computer-controlled GVS as part of a prospective experimental study conducted in a tertiary referral center. A binaural 1-cosinusoidal stimulus of 0.5 Hz and 1 mA was repeated five times. Binaural stimulation was chosen to obtain maximum responses, making possible habituation to repetitive GVS obvious. The groups consisted of 12 subjects suffering from carsickness and 12 healthy subjects.


RESULTS
Analysis of the repeated measurements test showed that the GBS-gain curve for the carsickness group was always superimposed on that for the healthy subjects. However, the (absolute) first to fifth GBS gains showed no significant differences (p = 0.134 - 0.995). When comparing short-term habituation in subjects suffering from carsickness versus healthy subjects, the results showed no differences in the mean values of the first (30.534% vs 27.024%), final (42.637% vs 38.544%) and average (35.544% vs 33.644%) habituations (p = 0.875, 0.991 and 0.951, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
We did not observe any significant differences in sensitivity or habituation of the GBS in carsick subjects compared to healthy subjects. This implies that carsick subjects show a similar ability to discard an irrelevant, non-motion sickness-inducing galvanic stimulus as healthy subjects.
Balter
Susan G T
SG
Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands. SBAL@skno.azm.nl
Stokroos
Robert J
RJ
van de Laar
Maikel M M
MM
Hendrice
Nadia
N
Kingma
Herman
H
D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004566:Electrodes; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009041:Motion Sickness / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011187:Posture / Q000502:physiology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014722:Vestibule, Labyrinth / Q000502:physiology*