Vestibular vertical: A balancing act between the upper and lower limbs

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Journal of Physiology

Volume

595

Issue

21

Publisher

Wiley

Publication Date

9-30-2017

First Page

6587

Abstract

Our vertical bipedal posture is one of thedefining traits that separates us from ourphylogenetic peers. Not surprisingly, themechanisms underlying how we main-tain this orientation have come underintense scientific scrutiny. To maintain thisposture, sensory signals from a variety ofsources are flexibly reweighted based ontheir reliability, and specificity towardsachieving the goal of staying upright.Moreover, different sensory cues are usedinterchangeably and in combination tocontrol our posture, the most notable beingvisual, somatosensory and vestibular. Toinvestigate the contribution of a particularsensory channel to the control of post-ural orientation, researchers often useexperimentally delivered sensory illusionssuch as: segmental vibration (somatosensa-tion), biased optic flow (vision), or galvanicvestibular stimulation (GVS), the latter ofwhich is important here.

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