Cross-Modal Calibration of Vestibular Afference for Human Balance

To determine how the vestibular sense controls balance, we used instantaneous head angular velocity to drive a galvanic vestibular stimulus so that afference would signal that head movement was faster or slower than actual. In effect, this changed vestibular afferent gain. This increased sway 4-fold when subjects (N = 8) stood without vision. However, after a 240 s conditioning period with stable balance achieved through reliable visual or somatosensory cues, sway returned to normal. An equivalent galvanic stimulus unrelated to sway (not driven by head motion) was equally destabilising but in this situation the conditioning period of stable balance did not reduce sway. Reflex muscle responses evoked by an independent, higher bandwidth vestibular stimulus were initially reduced in amplitude by the galvanic stimulus but returned to normal levels after the conditioning period, contrary to predictions that they would decrease after adaptation to increased sensory gain and increase after adaptation to decreased sensory gain. We conclude that an erroneous vestibular signal of head motion during standing has profound effects on balance control. If it is unrelated to current head motion, the CNS has no immediate mechanism of ignoring the vestibular signal to reduce its influence on destabilising balance. This result is inconsistent with sensory reweighting based on disturbances. The increase in sway with increased sensory gain is also inconsistent with a simple feedback model of vestibular reflex action. Thus, we propose that recalibration of a forward sensory model best explains the reinterpretation of an altered reafferent signal of head motion during stable balance.