Elicitation of motion sickness by head movements in the microgravity phase of parabolic flight maneuvers

During parabolic flight maneuvers in a Boeing KC-135 aircraft 44 college students were tested for motion sickness susceptibility. These subjects were categorized as 1) insusceptible, 2) moderately susceptible, or 3) highly susceptible to motion sickness during exposure to varying gravitoinertial force levels. After categorization, they were tested in the microgravity phase of parabolic flight to see how three types of head movements affected their baseline susceptibility. The head movements evaluated included side-to-side swivel, shoulder-to-shoulder roll, and front-up head and trunk movements; each type of head movement was used on a separate test day for eyes-open and eyes-covered conditions. Ten cycles of head movements were made in each parabola until a motion sickness endpoint, nausea, was reached or 40 parabolas had been completed. All types of head movements significantly increased susceptibility for subjects in all categories; eyes-open conditions were always more stressful than eyes-closed for each kind of head movement. These findings show unequivocally that natural head movements in microgravity can elicit symptoms of motion sickness. They suggest that head movements play an important etiological role in space motion sickness. In ground based studies where head movements are necessary to elicit symptoms, they are also necessary to elicit adaptation. We describe the use of paced and incremented head movement schedules as a possible way of partially alleviating space motion sickness.