Summary
The oculomotor and perceptual after-effects (AE) of optokinetic motion stimulation as well as the adaptive changes during stimulation were studied. The intensity and duration of optokinetic after-nystagmus (OKAN) and self-motion after-sensation (CV) are a function of stimulus duration. The direction is a result of two competing processes: positive tonus continuing the actual response to the stimulus and negative tonus causing a reversal in direction. Positive AEs increase with stimulus durations up to 1 min; the negative AEs increase up to the longest stimulus duration tested (15 min) and by antagonizing the positive AEs shorten their duration once stimulus duration exceeds 3 min. Negative AEs are interpreted as the consequence of a central counter-regulation to the actual stimulus effects: motion habituation.
During prolonged stimulation, motion habituation causes an apparent decrease in perceived velocity and may result in the sensation of periodic reversals of the direction of perceived self-motion, concurrent with a shift in average eye position towards the direction of the apparent reversal of self-motion, i.e. the nystagmic “Schlagfeld” reverses from the normal rapid-phase-side to the slow-phase as does also the CV.
Oculomotor and perceptual AEs similarly depend on stimulus qualities (e.g. duration, area of the moving stimulus and its location in the visual field). It is argued that positive AEs are due to an imbalance induced in the vestibular nuclei by the stimulus, and it is hypothezised that motion habituation acts upon the vestibular nuclei.
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Research supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft SFB 70 (“Hirnforschung und Sinnesphysiologie”).
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Brandt, T., Dichgans, J. & Büchele, W. Motion habituation: Inverted self-motion perception and optokinetic after-nystagmus. Exp Brain Res 21, 337–352 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237897
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00237897