Responses of gerbil utricular afferents to translational motion

In the present study, we report the sensitivity of utricular afferents to sinusoidal translational motion in the horizontal plane. The head orientation was altered relative to the direction of translational travel in 30 degrees increments to allow determination of the head orientation that elicited the maximal and minimal responses of each afferent neuron. We determined gain and phase relationships at a constant peak linear acceleration of 0.1 g applied at frequencies between 0.20 and 2.0 Hz for multiple head orientations. The response dynamics and vector of maximal sensitivity for the utricular afferents are consistent with those reported for other mammalian species. Irregularly (CV>0.3) and intermediate (0.1