Visual control of postural sway during quiet standing was investigated in normal subjects to see if motion parallax cues were able to improve postural stability. In experiment 1, six normal subjects fixated a fluorescent foreground target, either alone or in the presence of full room illumination. The results showed that subjects reduced body sway when the background was visible. This effect, however, could be mediated not only by parallax cues but also by an increase in the total area of visual field involved. In experiment 2, other parameters such as image angular size and target distance were controlled for. Twelve subjects fixated a two light-emitting diode (LED) target placed at 45 cm from their eyes in a dark room. A second similar two-LED target was placed either at 170 cm (maximum parallax) or at 85 cm (medium parallax) from the fixated target, or in the same plane of the fixated target (0 cm, no parallax). It was found that the amplitude of sway was reduced significantly, by approximately 20%, when the two targets were presented in depth (parallax present) as compared to when they were in the same plane (no parallax). The effect was only present in the lateral direction and for low frequency components of sway (up to 0.5 Hz). We confirmed in experiment 3 on eight subjects with a design similar to that used in experiment 2 that the effect of motion parallax on body sway was of monocular origin since observed with monocular and binocular vision. Geometrical considerations based on these results support the existence of two modes of visual detection of body sway, afferent (retinal slippage) and efferent (extra-retinal or eye-movement based).

Although activation of otolith receptors is known to elicit cardiovascular responses in animals, it is unclear whether vestibular stimulation can evoke changes in blood pressure and heart rate (which are independent of motion sickness) in humans. In the present study, ten normal subjects and three patients with profound bilateral reduction in vestibular function, who were seated upright with the torso aligned with the gravitation vector, were subjected to fore, aft, or lateral linear acceleration (approximately 0.2 g, attaining approximately 2 m/s in 900 ms, and decelerating for 3 s at 0.07 g). The head was fixed in the upright position, pitched maximally downward (chin on chest) or maximally backward (approximately 40-50 degrees) during the accelerations. In normal subjects, all directions of linear acceleration produced an average increase in systolic blood pressure of approximately 7-9 mm Hg and a rapid decrease in the interval between R-waves of the electrocardiogram of 14-27 ms; these responses persisted for only a few seconds. In contrast, the cardiovascular responses in patients with vestibular dysfunction were much smaller (e.g., the maximal pressor response to forward linear acceleration was <4 mm Hg). Head position during accelerations had little effect on the cardiovascular responses that were elicited in the population of normal subjects. However, although the population response was similar across directions of acceleration and head positions, many individuals exhibited larger cardiovascular changes during some stimulus conditions than during others. These data suggest that vestibular stimulation during linear accelerations can produce cardiovascular responses in humans and support the hypothesis that the vestibular system contributes to maintaining stable blood pressure during movement and changes in posture.

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