Peripheral galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) has been shown to temporarily ameliorate
left spatial neglect [
[1]
]. Specifically, anodal (facilitatory) stimulation over the left mastoid bone coupled
with cathodal (inhibitory) over the right mastoid reduces visuospatial-neglect scores
in line cancellation [
[2]
] and line bisection tasks [
3
,
4
]. This montage increases activity in the left vestibular nerve and suppresses activity
in the right [
[5]
], which has been shown to focally activate vestibular networks that occupy visuospatial
attention mechanisms, primarily in the non-dominant hemisphere [
[5]
]. Thus, it appears that electrical stimulation of the peripheral vestibular system
can shift visuospatial attention to the left side of space [
[4]
]. However, whether such a shift of spatial attention in normal subjects can influence
perception of spatial position during whole-body spatial translations is unknown.
We hypothesized that shifting attention to the left would result in participants underestimating
spatial position estimates during rightward whole-body translations and overestimating
spatial position estimates during leftward whole-body translations.To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
Purchase one-time access:
Academic & Personal: 24 hour online accessCorporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online accessOne-time access price info
- For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal'
- For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'
Subscribe:
Subscribe to Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research in NeuromodulationAlready a print subscriber? Claim online access
Already an online subscriber? Sign in
Register: Create an account
Institutional Access: Sign in to ScienceDirect
References
- Galvanic vestibular stimulation in hemi-spatial neglect.Front Integr Neurosci. 2014; 8: 4
- Reduction of visuo-spatial neglect with vestibular galvanic stimulation.Scand J Rehabil Med. 1999; 31: 117-124
- Galvanic vestibular stimulation reduces the pathological rightward line bisection error in neglect-a sham stimulation-controlled study.Neuropsychologia. 2011; 49: 1219-1225
- Vestibular modulation of spatial perception.Front Hum Neurosci. 2013; 7: 660
- Performing allocentric visuospatial judgments with induced distortion of the egocentric reference frame: an fMRI study with clinical implications.Neuroimage. 2003; 20: 1505-1517
- Self-motion perception influences number processing: evidence from a parity task.Cogn Process. 2012; 13: S189-S192
- Thresholds for detection of motion direction during passive lateral whole-body acceleration in normal subjects and patients with bilateral loss of labyrinthine function.Brain Res Bull. 1996; 40 (discussion 448–449): 443-447
- The spatial representation of numerical and non-numerical sequences: evidence from neglect.Neuropsychologia. 2006; 44: 1061-1067
- Short-latency eye movements evoked by near-threshold galvanic vestibular stimulation.Exp Brain Res. 2003; 148: 414-418
Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 23, 2015
Received:
July 10,
2015
Footnotes
We are supported by the UK Medical Research Council (MR/J004685/1).
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
