TY - GEN A1 - Ramaioli, Cecilia A1 - Steinmetzer, Tobias A1 - Brietzke, Adrian A1 - Meyer, Paul A1 - Pham Xuan, Rebecca A1 - Schneider, Erich A1 - Gorges, Martin T1 - Assessment of vestibulo-ocular reflex and its adaptation during stop-and-go car rides in motion sickness susceptible passengers T2 - Experimental Brain Research N2 - Motion sickness is a physiological condition that negatively impacts a person's comfort and will be an emerging condition in autonomous vehicles without proper countermeasures. The vestibular system plays a key role in the origin of motion sickness. Understanding the susceptibility and (mal) adaptive mechanisms of the highly integrated vestibular system is a prerequisite for the development of countermeasures. We hypothesize a differential association between motion sickness and vestibular function in healthy individuals with and without susceptibility for motion sickness. We quantified vestibular function by measuring the high-frequency vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) using video head impulse testing (vHIT) in 17 healthy volunteers before and after a 11 min motion sickness-inducing naturalistic stop-and-go car ride on a test track (Dekra Test Oval, Klettwitz, Germany). The cohort was classified as motion sickness susceptible (n = 11) and non-susceptible (n = 6). Six (out of 11) susceptible participants developed nausea symptoms, while a total of nine participants were free of these symptoms. The VOR gain (1) did not differ significantly between participant groups with (n = 8) and without motion sickness symptoms (n = 9), (2) did not differ significantly in the factor time before and after the car ride, and showed no interaction between symptom groups and time, as indicated by a repeated measures ANOVA (F(1,15) = 2.19, p = 0.16. Bayesian inference confirmed that there was “anecdotal evidence” for equality of gain rather than difference across groups and time (BF10 < 0.77). Our results suggest that individual differences in VOR measures or adaptation to motion sickness provocative stimuli during naturalistic stop-and-go driving cannot predict motion sickness susceptibility or the likelihood of developing motion sickness. KW - Video head impulse test KW - Vestibulo-ocular reflex KW - Adaptation KW - Motion sickness KW - Stop-and-go car ride Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-023-06619-4 SN - 1432-1106 SN - 0014-4819 VL - 241 IS - 6 SP - 1523 EP - 1531 ER -