Abstract
Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) delivered at imperceptible intensities can improve vestibular function in health and disease. Here we evaluated whether nGVS effects on vestibular function are only present during active stimulation or may exhibit relevant post-stimulation after-effects. Initially, nGVS amplitudes that optimally improve posture were determined in 13 healthy subjects. Subsequently, effects of optimal nGVS amplitudes on vestibular roll-tilt direction recognition thresholds (DRT) were examined during active and sham nGVS. Ten of 13 subjects exhibited reduced DRTs during active nGVS compared to sham stimulation (p < 0.001). These 10 participants were then administered to 30 mins of active nGVS treatment while being allowed to move freely. Immediately post-treatment , DRTs were increased again (p = 0.044), reverting to baseline threshold levels (i.e. were comparable to the sham nGVS thresholds), and remained stable in a follow-up assessment after 30 min. After three weeks, participants returned for a follow-up experiment to control for learning effects, in which DRTs were measured during and immediately after 30 min application of sham nGVS. DRTs during both assessments did not differ from baseline level. These findings indicate that nGVS does not induce distinct post-stimulation effects on vestibular motion perception and favor the development of a wearable technology that continuously delivers nGVS to patients in order to enhance vestibular function.
Highlights
Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation delivered at imperceptible intensities can improve vestibular function in health and disease
We found optimal Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) amplitudes (220 ± 155 μA, range 100–600 μA) that effectively improved posture compared to baseline performance (Fig. 1C; root mean square (RMS): F1,9 = 5.4, η2p = 0.37, p = 0.046; mean velocity (MV): F1,9 = 12.6, η2p = 0.58, p = 0.006; area: F1,9 = 7.6, η2p = 0.46, p = 0.023)
Ten out of 13 subjects showed improved direction recognition thresholds (DRT) during the application of nGVS at optimal amplitude compared to sham stimulation
Summary
Noisy galvanic vestibular stimulation (nGVS) delivered at imperceptible intensities can improve vestibular function in health and disease. With respect to future therapeutic applications of nGVS, it is important to determine whether nGVS-induced improvements in vestibular information processing are only present during active stimulation or will sustain after a prolonged treatment with this stimulation In line with the latter possibility, several studies on supra-threshold GVS could demonstrate profound after-effects on the ocular-motor and postural domains after stimulus termination[18,19,20,21,22,23]. The aim of the present study was to re-examine the possibility of sustained after-effects of nGVS on vestibular function, in particular on vestibular motion perception The latter has been recently demonstrated to be enhanced by the same nGVS amplitudes that improve posture[7,11]. The experimental setup was further controlled for possible cofounding placebo and task-dependent learning effects
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