Assessment of vestibulo-ocular reflex and its adaptation during stop-and-go car rides in motion sickness susceptible passengers

Abstract

Motion sickness is a physiological condition that negatively impacts a person's comfort and will be an emerging condition in autonomous vehicles without proper countermeasures. The vestibular system plays a key role in the origin of motion sickness. Understanding the susceptibility and (mal) adaptive mechanisms of the highly integrated vestibular system is a prerequisite for the development of countermeasures. We hypothesize a differential association between motion sickness and vestibular function in healthy individuals with and without susceptibility for motion sickness. We quantified vestibular function by measuring the high-frequency vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) using video head impulse testing (vHIT) in 17 healthy volunteers before and after a 11 min motion sickness-inducing naturalistic stop-and-go car ride on a test track (Dekra Test Oval, Klettwitz, Germany). The cohort was classified as motion sickness susceptible (n = 11) and non-susceptible (n = 6). Six (out of 11) susceptible participants developed nausea symptoms, while a total of nine participants were free of these symptoms. The VOR gain (1) did not differ significantly between participant groups with (n = 8) and without motion sickness symptoms (n = 9), (2) did not differ significantly in the factor time before and after the car ride, and showed no interaction between symptom groups and time, as indicated by a repeated measures ANOVA (F(1,15) = 2.19, p = 0.16. Bayesian inference confirmed that there was “anecdotal evidence” for equality of gain rather than difference across groups and time (BF10 < 0.77). Our results suggest that individual differences in VOR measures or adaptation to motion sickness provocative stimuli during naturalistic stop-and-go driving cannot predict motion sickness susceptibility or the likelihood of developing motion sickness.

Feeling unwell of passenger travel by small vehicles and associated risk factors in the North Shewa Zone, Oromiya, Ethiopia

“…The findings demonstrated that suppressing predisposing factors that are thought to induce ride discomfort will support passengers in feeling comfortable while travelling by minibuses. These findings are consistent with those of prior studies conducted by scholars in various locations and at various times [ 20 , 26 , 27 ]. All of the research described above advised countermeasures that could be viewed as model-based motion control systems for transportation authorities, but they did not focus on what and how suppression actions were performed by placing them in the social context.…”

“…Travel discomfort suppression methods are steps that can be taken to lessen or prevent people from feeling ill because of exposure while traveling in vehicles [ 25 , 26 ]. The findings demonstrated that suppressing predisposing factors that are thought to induce ride discomfort will support passengers in feeling comfortable while travelling by minibuses.…”

Three-dimensional characteristics of nystagmus induced by low frequency in semicircular canals of healthy young people

“…The traditional sine harmonic acceleration (SHA) around the vertical axis is limited to detecting the aVOR function in the low-frequency region of the lateral semicircular canal. Although vHIT can detect all six semicircular canals, it only detects the aVOR function in the high-frequency region of each semicircular canal ( Liu et al, 2023 ; Ramaioli et al, 2023 ). Despite many studies ( Baloh et al, 1986 ; Iida et al, 2001 ; Young et al, 2001 ) have explored methods to detect the low-frequency region of the vertical semicircular canal, their clinical applicability remains limited due to the high cost, invasiveness, age restrictions, and difficulties of head position control.…”