Relationship between Motion Sickness and Accuracy of Vestibulo-ocular Reflex

Abstract

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is the reflexive eye movement occurring in the opposite direction of head movement to stabilize the visual image during head movement. We hypothesize that there exists a correlation between motion sickness and the accuracy of VOR because motion sickness and VOR are thought to be related to the head movement signals estimated in the central nervous system. The first purpose of the present research is to investigate the relationship between motion sickness and VOR accuracy using a mathematical model, which simultaneously describes motion sickness and VOR. The result of numerical simulation experiments shows a strong negative correlation between VOR accuracy and the severity of motion sickness. The second purpose is to investigate the relationship between motion sickness and VOR accuracy by experiments on humans. The result shows moderate negative correlations between the VOR accuracy and the severity of motion sickness among participants.