Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes

Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) can be applied to induce the feeling of directional virtual head motion by stimulating the vestibular organs electrically. Conventional studies used a two-pole GVS, in which electrodes are placed behind each ear, or a three-pole GVS, in which an additional elect...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Aoyama, Kazuma, Iizuka, Hiroyuki, Ando, Hideyuki, Maeda, Taro
Format: Online
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4426693/
id pubmed-4426693
recordtype oai_dc
spelling pubmed-44266932015-05-21 Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes Aoyama, Kazuma Iizuka, Hiroyuki Ando, Hideyuki Maeda, Taro Article Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) can be applied to induce the feeling of directional virtual head motion by stimulating the vestibular organs electrically. Conventional studies used a two-pole GVS, in which electrodes are placed behind each ear, or a three-pole GVS, in which an additional electrode is placed on the forehead. These stimulation methods can be used to induce virtual head roll and pitch motions when a subject is looking upright. Here, we proved our hypothesis that there are current paths between the forehead and mastoids in the head and show that our invented GVS system using four electrodes succeeded in inducing directional virtual head motion around three perpendicular axes containing yaw rotation by applying different current patterns. Our novel method produced subjective virtual head yaw motions and evoked yaw rotational body sway in participants. These results support the existence of three isolated current paths located between the mastoids, and between the left and right mastoids and the forehead. Our findings show that by using these current paths, the generation of an additional virtual head yaw motion is possible. Nature Publishing Group 2015-05-11 /pmc/articles/PMC4426693/ /pubmed/25959790 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep10168 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
repository_type Open Access Journal
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building NCBI PubMed
collection Online Access
language English
format Online
author Aoyama, Kazuma
Iizuka, Hiroyuki
Ando, Hideyuki
Maeda, Taro
spellingShingle Aoyama, Kazuma
Iizuka, Hiroyuki
Ando, Hideyuki
Maeda, Taro
Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
author_facet Aoyama, Kazuma
Iizuka, Hiroyuki
Ando, Hideyuki
Maeda, Taro
author_sort Aoyama, Kazuma
title Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
title_short Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
title_full Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
title_fullStr Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
title_full_unstemmed Four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
title_sort four-pole galvanic vestibular stimulation causes body sway about three axes
description Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) can be applied to induce the feeling of directional virtual head motion by stimulating the vestibular organs electrically. Conventional studies used a two-pole GVS, in which electrodes are placed behind each ear, or a three-pole GVS, in which an additional electrode is placed on the forehead. These stimulation methods can be used to induce virtual head roll and pitch motions when a subject is looking upright. Here, we proved our hypothesis that there are current paths between the forehead and mastoids in the head and show that our invented GVS system using four electrodes succeeded in inducing directional virtual head motion around three perpendicular axes containing yaw rotation by applying different current patterns. Our novel method produced subjective virtual head yaw motions and evoked yaw rotational body sway in participants. These results support the existence of three isolated current paths located between the mastoids, and between the left and right mastoids and the forehead. Our findings show that by using these current paths, the generation of an additional virtual head yaw motion is possible.
publisher Nature Publishing Group
publishDate 2015
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4426693/
_version_ 1613221625876971520