A parametric study of vestibular stimulation during centrifugation

Abstract

Artificial Gravity (AG) provided by short-radius centrifugation is a promising countermeasure to the health problems associated with long duration human spaceflight. Head-turns performed during centrifugation, however, trigger a disturbing vestibular response that is only qualitatively understood. In order to design an efficient incremental adaptation procedure, the present study investigates the quantitative aspect of the vestibular side effects associated with AG, in particular, the relationship among crosscoupled stimulation, vestibular response, and adaptation. We tested 20 young adults with supine right-quadrant yaw head-turns performed in a dark environment during short-radius centrifugation. We studied the changes in vestibular response and adaptation to head-turns at different levels of cross-coupled stimulation. Nine combinations of head-turn angle (20°, 40° or 80°) with centrifugevelocity (12, 19 or 30 rpm) were tested over two consecutive days.

(cont.) There were four key findings: 1. All measures, except the slow-phase velocity (SPV) peak amplitude of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, decrease significantly between the two experimental days, which demonstrates that significant adaptation is achieved. 2. Large head-angles lead to longer vertical vestibulo-ocular reflex time-constants than smaller angles do, but do not lead to greater adaptation. 3. In the nose-up position, the perceived body-tilt is highly correlated with the true tilt of the gravito-inertial force at mid-chest level. 4. The SPV-peak amplitude and all subjective ratings except body-tilt show significant correlation with the intensity of the cross-coupled stimulus (CCS): the larger the CCS, the stronger the vestibular response.