Analysis of righting reflex in cats with unilateral and bilateral labyrinthectomy

High-speed cinematographic analysis of cats' righting reflex was done in conjunction with surgical ablation of vestibular end organs (unilateral and bilateral). The body rotating direction after labyrinthectomy (regardless of first side or second side) was found to be contralateral almost exclusively. Post-operatively, the righting time for each body segment showed some delay but subsequently improved after the trial repetition along the time course. At that late post-bilateral labyrinthectomy stage, cats could indeed right without any vestibular input, and even with additionally and randomly eliminated visual cue by blindfold.