Studies in Positional Nystagmus in Human Centrifuge

Abstract

Change in resultant force under weak subliminal angular acceleration was applied to man in a human centrifuge. No nystagmus could be detected by electro nystagmography in healthy subjects lying in the right or left lateral position.

Similar experiments carried out on subjects with a pathological positional nystagmus showed increase in nystagmus intensity after increase in resultant force. This increase in nystagmus intensity was related only to increase in resultant force and not to angular acceleration or tangential acceleration. The test subjects had sensation of linear tangential acceleration and no sensation of angular acceleration.

The experiments seem to show that the receptor organ of linear acceleration and gravitation gives the impulse to positional nystagmus wherever the real damage is situated—“periferal or central”.