Review published: 26 July 2017 doi: 10.3389/fneur.2017.00334
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Elie Hammam 1 and Vaughan G. Macefield1,2*† 1 School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2 Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Edited by: Bernard Cohen, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States Reviewed by: André Diedrich, Vanderbilt University, United States Pierre-Paul Vidal, Université Paris Descartes, France *Correspondence: Vaughan G. Macefield [email protected] † Present address: Vaughan G. Macefield, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Neuro-otology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Neurology Received: 29 January 2017 Accepted: 26 June 2017 Published: 26 July 2017 Citation: Hammam E and Macefield VG (2017) Vestibular Modulation of Sympathetic Nerve Activity to Muscle and Skin in Humans. Front. Neurol. 8:334. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2017.00334
Frontiers in Neurology | www.frontiersin.org
We review the existence of vestibulosympathetic reflexes in humans. While several methods to activate the human vestibular apparatus have been used, galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is a means of selectively modulating vestibular afferent activity via electrodes over the mastoid processes, causing robust vestibular illusions of side-to-side movement. Sinusoidal GVS (sGVS) causes partial entrainment of sympathetic outflow to muscle and skin. Modulation of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) from vestibular inputs competes with baroreceptor inputs, with stronger temporal coupling to the vestibular stimulus being observed at frequencies remote from the cardiac frequency; “super entrainment” was observed in some individuals. Low-frequency (
V
Elie Hammam 1 and Vaughan G. Macefield1,2*† 1 School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2 Neuroscience Research Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Edited by: Bernard Cohen, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States Reviewed by: André Diedrich, Vanderbilt University, United States Pierre-Paul Vidal, Université Paris Descartes, France *Correspondence: Vaughan G. Macefield [email protected] † Present address: Vaughan G. Macefield, Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Neuro-otology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Neurology Received: 29 January 2017 Accepted: 26 June 2017 Published: 26 July 2017 Citation: Hammam E and Macefield VG (2017) Vestibular Modulation of Sympathetic Nerve Activity to Muscle and Skin in Humans. Front. Neurol. 8:334. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2017.00334
Frontiers in Neurology | www.frontiersin.org
We review the existence of vestibulosympathetic reflexes in humans. While several methods to activate the human vestibular apparatus have been used, galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) is a means of selectively modulating vestibular afferent activity via electrodes over the mastoid processes, causing robust vestibular illusions of side-to-side movement. Sinusoidal GVS (sGVS) causes partial entrainment of sympathetic outflow to muscle and skin. Modulation of muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) from vestibular inputs competes with baroreceptor inputs, with stronger temporal coupling to the vestibular stimulus being observed at frequencies remote from the cardiac frequency; “super entrainment” was observed in some individuals. Low-frequency (
