[Models and experimentation. Vestibular adaptation].

In 1961, we have given the experimental proof that, in the frog, the excited or inhited electrical activity of the ampullar nerve produced by a copular deflection of long duration, showed a decline which was attributed to an "adaptation" of peripheral origin. We suggested that the "inverse phase" was due to this adaptation. Since then, many workers have showed that such an adaptation was to be found in the induced nystagmus by prolonged angular acceleration. The mathematical models constructed to explain the vestibular function have to take in account this response decline to coincide with the evolution of the slow phase velocity of the nystagmus, during the prolonged deflexions of the cupula produced by the clinical vestibular rotatory and caloric tests.