Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 4, 2026

How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants
Published on: December 14, 2014
Effects of prochlorperazine on normal vestibular ocular and perceptual responses: a randomised, double-blind,
M Patel1, Y Nigmatullina, B M Seemungal
1Division of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London, Charing Cross Hospital, London, UK.
Background:
The present study investigated whether prochlorperazine affects vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and vestibulo-perceptual function.
Methods:
We studied 12 healthy naïve subjects 3 h after a single dose of oral prochlorperazine 5 mg in a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study in healthy young subjects. Two rotational tests in yaw were used: (1) a threshold task investigating perceptual motion detection and nystagmic thresholds (acceleration steps of 0.5°/s(2)) and (2) suprathreshold responses to velocity steps of 90°/s in which vestibulo-ocular and vestibuloperceptual time constants of decay, as well as VOR gain, were measured.
Results:
Prochlorperazine had no effect upon any measure of nystagmic or perceptual vestibular function compared to placebo. This lack of effects on vestibular-mediated motion perception suggests that the drug is likely to act more as an anti-emetic than as an antivertiginous agent.
Related Concept Videos
Equilibrium and Balance
Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting: Dopamine Receptor Antagonists
Phenothiazines, such as prochlorperazine...
The Vestibular System
Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting: 5-HT3 Receptor Antagonists
Blind Procedures
Pathophysiology of Vomiting

