Motion Sickness and Space Motion Sickness

Abstract

Motion sickness occurs when man is expected to certain types of real or apparent motion. The signs and symptoms are malaise, pallor, cold sweating, nausea and vomiting. According to the sensory conflict theory, neural mismatch among the actual sensory input from the eyes, the vestibular apparatus and the somatosensory receptors and the signals expected to be received in the central nervous system causes motion sickness. We developed a rat model and examined the roles of histamine, acetylcholine and noradrenaline in the development of motion sickness. We conclude that 1) histamine plays a role in the onset of the disorder; 2) acetylcholine is involved in the sensory conflict mechanisms; 3) noradrenaline modulates the sensory information. Space motion sickness is generally regarded as a variation of the common type of motion sickness. Here, we introduce three hypothese of space motion sickness and explain the results of space vestibular experiments on space motion sickness in the Sky-lab mission and Spacelab-1 mission. © 1988, The Society of Practical Otolaryngology. All rights reserved.