The effects of vestibular stimuli on brain cognitive processing: an ERP study

Cognition impairment caused by space motion sickness often is a risk of spaceflight. So the dynamic changes of pattern of brain cognitive processing under varied vestibular stimuli was explored using event-related potentials. Vestibular stimulation was produced by rotary chair and varied linearly, i.e. control, constant 10 degrees/s rotation and constant 0.6 degrees/s, 0.8 degrees/s, 1.0 degrees/s, 1.2 degrees/s acceleration. Thirty-three subjects participated in the study and performed same auditory selective attention task in which the odd numbers in a randomly mixed series of odd and even numbers (go/no-go) presented acoustically in Chinese pronunciation were assigned as target signal during the rotation stimuli. The results showed that the P3 latency induced by target signal and the N1P2, P2N2 and N2P3 peak-to-peak amplitudes decreased significantly during constant 10 degrees/s rotation in contrast to control and constant angular acceleration. The P3 latency induced by target signal was shorter during constant 0.6 degrees/s and 1.2 degrees/s acceleration rotations than that during constant 0.8 degrees/s and 1.0 degrees/s acceleration rotations. It was suggested that constant angular velocity rotation had a promotion effect on brain cognitive processing. The constant angular acceleration inhibited the cognitive processing and its action had at least two different levels.