Affiliations: [a] Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, New York, NY, USA | [b] CNRS, Toulouse, France | [c] Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, New York, NY, USA | [d] Department of Computer and Information Science, Brooklyn College of CUNY, Brooklyn, NY, USA | [e] University of Pennsylvania, Department of Neurology, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Steven Moore, Ph.D., Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Box 1135, 1 E 100th St., New York, NY 10029, USA. Tel.: +1 212 241 9306; Fax: +1 212 831 1610; E-mail: steven.moore@mssm.edu
Abstract: In this paper we review space flight experiments performed by our laboratory. Rhesus monkeys were tested before and after 12 days in orbit on COSMOS flights 2044 (1989) and 2229 (1992–1993). There was a long-lasting decrease in post-flight ocular counter-rolling (70%) and vergence (50%) during off-vertical axis rotation. In one animal, the orientation of optokinetic after-nystagmus shifted by 28° from the spatial vertical towards the body vertical early post-flight. Otolith-ocular and perceptual responses were also studied in four astronauts on the 17-day Neurolab shuttle mission (STS-90) in 1998. Ocular counter-rolling was unchanged in response to 1-g and 0.5-g Gy centrifugation during and after flight and to post-flight static roll tilts relative to pre-flight values. Orientation of the optokinetic nystagmus eye velocity axis to gravito-inertial acceleration (GIA) during centrifugation was also unaltered by exposure to microgravity. Perceptual orientation to the GIA was maintained in-flight, and subjects did not report sensation of translation during constant velocity centrifugation. These studies suggest that percepts and ocular responses to tilt are determined by sensing the body vertical relative to the GIA. The findings also raise the possibility that 'artificial gravity' during the Neurolab flight counteracted adaptation of these otolith-ocular responses.
