Perception of threshold-level whole-body motion during mechanical mastoid vibration

Kabbaligere, Rakshatha; Layne, Charles S.; Karmali, Faisal

doi:10.3233/ves-180636

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(124 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Kabbaligere et al (2018) applied wide-spectrum (1-500 Hz) random vibrations to bilateral mastoids, which are known to stimulate the vestibular system (Young et al 1977). They did not find significant differences in the threshold for yaw rotation with or without vibration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Their results are not directly comparable to ours, since they were obtained for a different motion axis (yaw rotation), different stimuli, and different setups (their MOOG is a different model from ours). Kabbaligere et al (2018) applied wide-spectrum (1-500 Hz) random vibrations to bilateral mastoids, which are known to stimulate the vestibular system (Young et al 1977). They did not find significant differences in the threshold for yaw rotation with or without vibration.…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few prior studies tested motion perception using mechanical noise, instead of electrical noise. Wide-spectrum vibrations applied directly to the mastoid did not significantly change the threshold for yaw rotation at 1 Hz (Kabbaligere et al 2018). Vertical whole-body oscillations (6 Hz; 1-2 mm amplitude; peak acceleration of about 140 cm/s2) resulted in horizontal heading-direction thresholds higher than without the perturbation (Rodriguez and Crane 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Enhancement of vestibular motion discrimination by small stochastic whole-body perturbations in young healthy humans

Scaleia

Lacquaniti

Zago

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation has been shown to improve vestibular perception in healthy subjects. Here, we sought to obtain similar results using more natural stimuli consisting of small-amplitude motion perturbations of the whole body. Thirty participants were asked to report the perceived direction of antero-posterior sinusoidal motion on a MOOG platform. We compared the baseline perceptual thresholds with those obtained by applying small, stochastic perturbations at different power levels along the antero-posterior axis, symmetrically distributed around a zero-mean. At the population level, we found that the thresholds for all but the highest level of noise were significantly lower than the baseline threshold. At the individual level, the threshold was lower with at least one noise level than the threshold without noise in 87% of participants. Thus, small, stochastic oscillations of the whole body can increase the probability of detecting subthreshold vestibular signals, possibly due to stochastic resonance mechanisms. We suggest that, just as the external noise of the present experiments, also the spontaneous random oscillations of the body associated with standing posture are beneficial by enhancing vestibular thresholds with a mechanism similar to stochastic resonance. The results are also relevant from a clinical perspective, since they raise the possibility of improving motion perception in people with elevated thresholds due to aging or vestibulopathy by means of small-amplitude motion perturbations.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Enhancement of vestibular motion discrimination by small stochastic whole-body perturbations in young healthy humans

Scaleia

Lacquaniti

Zago

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In humans, mechanical perturbations applied during vestibular motion discrimination tasks have been shown to increase, decrease or leave unaffected the thresholds, depending on the type and intensity of noise. Thus, wide-spectrum vibrations (1–500 Hz colored noise) applied directly to the mastoid did not affect the threshold for yaw rotation discrimination ( 130 ). Strong (about 140 cm/s 2 peak acceleration) vertical whole-body oscillations (6 Hz) significantly increased (almost doubled) horizontal heading-direction thresholds ( 16 ).…”

Section: Perceptual Effects Of Externally Applied Noisy Stimulimentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise and vestibular perception of passive self-motion

2023

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Noise defined as random disturbances is ubiquitous in both the external environment and the nervous system. Depending on the context, noise can degrade or improve information processing and performance. In all cases, it contributes to neural systems dynamics. We review some effects of various sources of noise on the neural processing of self-motion signals at different stages of the vestibular pathways and the resulting perceptual responses. Hair cells in the inner ear reduce the impact of noise by means of mechanical and neural filtering. Hair cells synapse on regular and irregular afferents. Variability of discharge (noise) is low in regular afferents and high in irregular units. The high variability of irregular units provides information about the envelope of naturalistic head motion stimuli. A subset of neurons in the vestibular nuclei and thalamus are optimally tuned to noisy motion stimuli that reproduce the statistics of naturalistic head movements. In the thalamus, variability of neural discharge increases with increasing motion amplitude but saturates at high amplitudes, accounting for behavioral violation of Weber’s law. In general, the precision of individual vestibular neurons in encoding head motion is worse than the perceptual precision measured behaviorally. However, the global precision predicted by neural population codes matches the high behavioral precision. The latter is estimated by means of psychometric functions for detection or discrimination of whole-body displacements. Vestibular motion thresholds (inverse of precision) reflect the contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic noise to perception. Vestibular motion thresholds tend to deteriorate progressively after the age of 40 years, possibly due to oxidative stress resulting from high discharge rates and metabolic loads of vestibular afferents. In the elderly, vestibular thresholds correlate with postural stability: the higher the threshold, the greater is the postural imbalance and risk of falling. Experimental application of optimal levels of either galvanic noise or whole-body oscillations can ameliorate vestibular function with a mechanism reminiscent of stochastic resonance. Assessment of vestibular thresholds is diagnostic in several types of vestibulopathies, and vestibular stimulation might be useful in vestibular rehabilitation.

show abstract

Vestibular Precision at the Level of Perception, Eye Movements, Posture, and Neurons

Diaz‐Artiles

Karmali

2021

Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Perception of threshold-level whole-body motion during mechanical mastoid vibration

Abstract: Bilateral mastoid vibration may reduce left-right asymmetry in motion perception.

Cited by 4 publications

References 90 publications

Enhancement of vestibular motion discrimination by small stochastic whole-body perturbations in young healthy humans

Enhancement of vestibular motion discrimination by small stochastic whole-body perturbations in young healthy humans

Noise and vestibular perception of passive self-motion

Vestibular Precision at the Level of Perception, Eye Movements, Posture, and Neurons

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About