Vestibular mapping of the naturalistic head-centered motion spectrum

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Ertl, Matthias^{a; b; *} | zu Eulenburg, Peter^{c; d} | Woller, Marie^b | Mayadali, Ümit^d | Boegle, Rainer^{c; d} | Dieterich, Marianne^{b; c; d; e}

Affiliations: [a] Department of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland | [b] Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany | [c] German Center for Vertigo and Balance Disorders (IFB^LMU), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany | [d] Graduate School of Systemic Neuroscience, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany | [e] Munich Cluster for Neurology (SyNergy), Munich, Germany

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author: Dr. rer. biol. hum. Matthias Ertl, University of Bern, Switzerland, Department of Psychology, Fabrikstrasse 8, 3012 Bern. Phone: +41 31 631 54 35; E-mail: matthias.ertl@psy.unibe.ch; ORCID: 0000-0002-6823-1935.

Abstract: BACKGROUND:Naturalistic head accelerations can be used to elicit vestibular evoked potentials (VestEPs). These potentials allow for analysis of cortical vestibular processing and its multi-sensory integration with a high temporal resolution. METHODS:We report the results of two experiments in which we compared the differential VestEPs elicited by randomized translations, rotations, and tilts in healthy subjects on a motion platform. RESULTS:An event-related potential (ERP) analysis revealed that established VestEPs were verifiable in all three acceleration domains (translations, rotations, tilts). A further analysis of the VestEPs showed a significant correlation between rotation axes (yaw, pitch, roll) and the amplitude of the evoked potentials. We found increased amplitudes for rotations in the roll compared to the pitch and yaw plane. A distributed source localization analysis showed that the activity in the cingulate sulcus visual (CSv) area best explained direction-dependent amplitude modulations of the VestEPs, but that the same cortical network (posterior insular cortex, CSv) is involved in processing vestibular information, regardless of the motion direction. CONCLUSION:The results provide evidence for an anisotropic, direction-dependent processing of vestibular input by cortical structures. The data also suggest that area CSv plays an integral role in ego-motion perception and interpretation of spatial features such as acceleration direction and intensity.

Keywords: Cingulate sulcus visual, direction dependency, vestibular anisotropy, vestibular evoked potentials, passive motion

DOI: 10.3233/VES-210121

Journal: Journal of Vestibular Research, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 299-312, 2023