Effects of motion sickness severity on the vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials

Motion sickness is a common debilitating condition associated with both actual and perceived motion. Despite the commonality, little is known about the underlying physiological mechanisms. One theory proposes that motion sickness arises from a mismatch between reality and past experience in vertical motions. Physiological tests of the vestibular system, however, have been inconclusive regarding the underlying pathogenesis. Cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMPs) arise from the saccule, which responds to vertical motion. If vertical motion elicits motion sickness, the cVEMP should be affected.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if cVEMP characteristics differ among individuals with a range of motion sickness susceptibility from negligible to severe. The hypothesis was that individuals with high susceptibility would have larger cVEMP amplitudes and shorter cVEMP latencies relative to those who are resistant to motion sickness.

The study had two parts. The first was quasi-experimental in which participants comprised three groups based on susceptibility to motion sickness (low, mild-moderate, high) as identified on the short version of the Motion Sickness Susceptibility Questionnaire (MSSQ-S). The second part of the study was correlational and evaluated the specific relationships between the degree of motion sickness susceptibility and characteristics of the VEMPs.

A total of 24 healthy young adults (ages 20-24 yr) were recruited from the university and the community without regard to motion sickness severity.

Participants took the MSSQ-S, which quantifies susceptibility to motion sickness. The participants had a range of motion sickness susceptibility with MSSQ raw scores from 0.0-36.6, which correspond to percent susceptibility from 0.0-99.3%. VEMPs were elicited by 500 Hz tone-bursts monaurally in both ears at 120 dB pSPL. MSSQ-S percent scores were used to divide the participants into low, mild-moderate, and high susceptibility groups. A fixed general linear model with repeated-measures analysis of variance tested cVEMP characteristics for the susceptibility groups (between participants) and ears (within participants). A univariate analysis of variance tested the cVEMP interaural amplitudes across groups. The second analysis was a regression of the severity of motion sickness in percent on cVEMP characteristics. Significance was defined as p < 0.05.

Participants in the high susceptibility group had significantly higher cVEMP amplitudes than those in the low susceptibility group. cVEMP amplitudes did not differ between ears, and latencies did not differ between the two groups or between ears. Regression analysis on MSSQ-S percent susceptibility by VEMP amplitudes revealed a best-fit cubic function in both ears, with r(2) values of more than 42%. The interaural asymmetry ratio was negatively associated with motion sickness susceptibility (r(2) = 0.389).

The current study is the first to report that greater susceptibility to motion sickness is associated with larger cVEMP amplitudes and lower interaural cVEMP asymmetries. Larger interaural asymmetries in cVEMPs did not promote motion sickness susceptibility. The cVEMP findings implicate the saccule and its neural pathways in the production of motion sickness and are consistent with the theory that vertical motions elicit motion sickness. Motion sickness susceptibility may contribute to the variability in normative cVEMP amplitudes.