Relationship between temporal changes in cardiac parasympathetic activity and motion sickness severity

Abstract

Chemotherapy-induced nausea has been associated with a time-related decrease in cardiac parasympathetic activity. We tested the hypothesis that a time-related decrease in cardiac parasympathetic activity would also be associated with nausea and other motion sickness symptoms during illusory self-motion (vection). Fifty-nine participants (aged 18-34 years: 25 male) were exposed to a rotating optokinetic drum to induce vection. Symptoms of motion sickness and an estimate of cardiac parasympathetic activity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) were obtained at baseline and throughout a drum-rotation period. As expected, motion sickness symptoms increased and RSA decreased over time during drum rotation. Moreover, greater decreases in RSA over time correlated with greater motion sickness severity. These results suggest that a time-related decrease in cardiac parasympathetic activity may be an important correlate of nausea and motion sickness across different evocative contexts.

Motion sickness susceptibility associated with visually induced postural instability and cardiac autonomic responses in healthy subjects

“…Chemotherapy-induced nausea has been associated with a decrease in cardiac parasympathetic activity. This result leads to the possibility that a decrease in cardiac parasympathetic activity may induce MS symptoms [18]. In our study, the respiratory frequency was uniformly increased by the visual stimuli but did not, however, depend on the stimulus frequency.…”

Use of Controlled Diaphragmatic Breathing for the Management of Motion Sickness in a Virtual Reality Environment

“…Research has shown that higher activity of the parasympathetic nervous system before exposure to motion sickness inducing stimuli results in minimal increases in motion sickness (Uijtdehaage et al 1992). Also, studies show reduction in parasympathetic nervous system activity before exposure to motion sickness inducing stimuli consistently leads to the development of motion sickness symptoms during exposure (Hu et al 1991;Gianaros et al 2003). Gianaros et al (2003) demonstrated that a strong negative relationship exists between motion sickness levels and respiratory sinus arrhythmia levels; it is important to note that respiratory sinus arrhythmia is a reliable measure of parasympathetic tone.…”

“…Also, studies show reduction in parasympathetic nervous system activity before exposure to motion sickness inducing stimuli consistently leads to the development of motion sickness symptoms during exposure (Hu et al 1991;Gianaros et al 2003). Gianaros et al (2003) demonstrated that a strong negative relationship exists between motion sickness levels and respiratory sinus arrhythmia levels; it is important to note that respiratory sinus arrhythmia is a reliable measure of parasympathetic tone. These data suggest that diminished parasympathetic nervous system activity can precipitate motion sickness symptoms; they also suggest that strategies designed to enhance parasympathetic nervous system activity may be useful in reducing motion sickness symptoms.…”

Effects of Motion Sickness on Encoding and Retrieval Performance and on Psychophysiological Responses

“…Particularly surprising was the decrease in respiration rate over time and with increasing motion sickness, which contradicts previous research where slow breathing has been shown to [33,34]. However, Gianaros et al [35] also found decreased respiration rate during optokinetic stimulation, but the decrease was not related to motion sickness severity.…”