Motion sickness and otolith asymmetry

There is a highly scattered inter-individual susceptibility in man to motion sickness. It is discussed whether different masses of otoconias between right and left sides are responsible for a high susceptibility. In order to proof this theory, we measured the otoliths of fish (salmons, trouts, Xiphophorus Helleri; Sumatra barbes) and found big differences in the utricular stones up to 140%. The mass differences of the saccular stones were much smaller. In fish, showing abnormal swimming behavior during off-vertical axis rotation we found big mass differences compared to that of normal swimmers. This difference was only seen in the utricular and not in the saccular stones. We therefore assume, that a big mass difference is one of the factors to trigger motion sickness especially for the high susceptibility to it. The macula utriculi seem to be much more integrated in the vestibular sense than the macula sacculi.