The severity of nauseogenic effect of cross-coupled rotation is proportional to gyroscopic angular acceleration.

METHOD AND RESULTS

Subjects underwent cross-coupled rotation of the head (i.e., Coriolis stimuli) during which the upper body was tilted from side to side during horizontal rotation of the whole body about the Earth-vertical axis. In Experiment 1, the angle between the two axes of cross-coupled rotation was changed to vary the magnitude of gyroscopic angular acceleration without wide variations in Coriolis linear acceleration. The severity of nausea evoked by cross-coupled rotation stimuli varied relative to the magnitude of gyroscopic angular acceleration. It is noteworthy that nausea was not evoked unless gyroscopic angular acceleration was generated, even though Coriolis linear acceleration was equally induced. In Experiment 2, subjects tilted the upper body with or without restriction of head movement to a vertical plane during Earth-vertical axis rotation of the body at various angular velocities. The severity of evoked nausea was in direct proportion to angular velocity of body rotation irrespective of the restriction.

CONCLUSION

These results indicated that the severity of nauseogenic effect of cross-coupled rotation is directly proportional to gyroscopic angular acceleration.