Relationship between Motion Sickness and Peripheral Vestibular Dysfucntion: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Motion sickness can be triggered by illusions of passive motions such as, from a moving visual background, transport modalities such as cars, trains, planes and boats, as well as illusions of passive motion from video games, virtual reality and three-dimensional videos, as per the latest trend of modern life. The exhibition of signs and symptoms by these individuals vary according to the severity of motion sickness. Video head impulse test, vestibular evoked myogenic potential and caloric tests are some of the contemporary tests that have been used in the literature for the diagnosis of vestibular dys-function in individuals with motion sickness. Aim: The current study aims to systematically review the articles related to peripheral ves-tibular dysfunction in individuals with motion sickness. Method: Initially, a review search was performed in different databases. Searches across dif-ferent databases resulted in 550 topic-related articles. A total of twelve articles met the inclu-sion and exclusion criteria to meet the objectives of the study. The quality and potential risk associated with each article were evaluated using the QUADAS-2 risk of bias assessment tool. Results: The results of studies that have used vHIT indicate normal VOR gain in subjects with motion sickness. However, a higher VOR gain asymmetry ratio was established in the participants with motion sickness. And there are equivocal findings in terms of presence or absence of refixation saccades in individuals with motion sickness. However, the studies reviewed here have reported a dissociation between caloric test and peripheral vestibular dysfunction in motion sickness. The results which delineated the findings of VEMP in par-ticipants with motion sickness found that, in majority of the studies, the VEMP latencies, amplitude and the interpeak amplitude and latency did not show a significant difference. The studies also reported that individuals with motion sickness had elevated (worse) thresholds compared to the control groups. Majority of the authors have also reported, an elevated asymmetry ratio in groups with motion sickness compared to that of the control groups. Conclusion: Therefore it can be inferred from this systematic review that a peripheral ves-tibular dysfunction prevails in individuals with motion sickness, and it can be found out using an appropriate test battery and test protocol.