Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958-1964United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Science
Significant Achievements in Space Bioscience 1958-1964
United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Biology; Space flight
Among a great variety of sensory receptors, the vestibular ones are
capable of evoking the most widespread somatovisceral effects throughout
the body. Moreover, vestibular effects seem to be imperious and less
dependent upon the state of readiness of the nervous system. As a
consequence of the extensive distribution of vestibular effects, there
are many opportunities for central integration. Proprioceptive and
vestibular systems are both known to be active in posture and
locomotion; streams of impulses arising from the receptors in each of
these systems must converge to influence the activity of the final
common path. The state of the motor centers of the spinal cord, as
affected by vestibular stimulation, has been tested by dorsal root and
other sensory input interventions. These experiments have provided us
with insight into the mechanisms concerned with the vestibular control
of spinal reflexes (refs. [ref.142]-[ref.146]).
It has long been known that the vestibular apparatus is essential for
the development of motion sickness. Commonplace subjective experience of
nausea relates to visceral changes mediated through autonomic efferent
pathways and may ultimately involve rhythmic somatic nerve discharges to
skeletal muscles responsible for retching and vomiting. However, very
little is known about the central nervous mechanisms responsible for
elaboration of the whole syndrome. Since the maintenance of vestibular
bombardment for some length of time seems essential for the development
of motion sickness, one would presume this to be an instance of slow
temporal summation. Experimental findings demonstrate a powerful effect
of temporal summation upon somatic motor outflow during vestibular
stimulation ([ref.147]), and not upon parasympathetic outflow.
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