Nystagmus, gaze shift, and self-motion perception during sinusoidal head and neck rotation

Report on eye movements and perceived horizontal head rotation in 26 healthy students during sinusoidal vestibular, visual, cervical, congruent vestibular-plus-visual, or vestibular-plus-cervical stimulation. Circularvection occurred more often during neck afferent than during full-field optokinetic stimuli. In contrast, the cervico-ocular response had a low average velocity. As first noted by Frenzel (1928), a greater gaze shift distinguished the normal cervical from the normal labyrinthine response. The cervico-ocular and vestibulo-ocular responses were found to add up. Clinically, the results imply that ocular movements may be a poor measure of dizziness in cervical syndromes.