Abstract
Emesis, or vomiting is a debasing and debilitating act, especially for those with claims to the “right stuff.” It is bad enough to have to reach for the airsick bag in the rear seat of a gyrating fighter jet, but to fill a spacecraft’s motionless flight- or middeck with floating globules of half digested food and noxious odors is worse. Yet this often happened, usually in the first few hours of spaceflight, even to commanders, and often to those who were resistant to sickness in aircraft and other vehicles. Vomiting during spaceflight usually happens without warning and often too suddenly to get a bag up to one’s mouth in time. Emesis is only the beginning of what is known as space motion sickness (SMS). It is followed by increasing malaise, loss of appetite, lethargy, loss of interest and drive, with somnolence and variable headache. Body and head motions, especially pitching motions, are unpleasant and, if persisted in, can produce nausea, prolonged vomiting and other symptoms of motion sickness (MS). Motivated and trained crewmembers can work effectively during this period, albeit with varying amounts of discomfort. All of these symptoms typically dissipate within 2 days, and do not recur in flight. It is not surprising that early astronauts were not eager to report SMS, especially since nothing could be done about it except make it a part of their personal records. It was referred to only half jokingly as the “dreaded space motion sickness.” Somewhat less than half of first time space flyers will experience SMS until vestibular adaptation removes the cause.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
There is no local motion, such as in ships and aircraft on earth, to produce motion sickness.
- 2.
This is projectile vomiting—sudden, without nausea or retching, and emptying the stomach in one or two heaves.
- 3.
The otolithic sensor is the portion of the bilateral inner ear vestibular organs that detect gravity and linear and angular accelerations.
- 4.
Changes in the orientation signals generate primary signals of angular head motion.
- 5.
Stimuli from tastes, odors and visual scenes can also stimulate the nausea center, even to the point that it stimulates the vomiting center.
- 6.
Such vomiting is seen only in serious disease on Earth.
- 7.
An Apollo crewman, instructed to make repeated sets of head motions to “expedite adaptation” reported, “I did it once, and it made me so sick to even think about it that I wasn’t about to do it again.”
- 8.
A favorite story (WT) of adaptive specificity is that of an astronaut who spent countless miserable hours in the rotating chair tucking his head for the Coriolis effect to produce MS. When he finally became “immune” to the effects, he reversed the direction of rotation and found head tucks made him as sick as ever.
References
Lackner JR, DiZio P. Space motion sickness. Exp Brain Res. 2006;175(3):377–99.
Thornton WE, Bonato F. Space motion sickness and motion sickness: symptoms and etiology. Aviat Space Environ Med. 2013;84(7):716–21.
Homick J, Miller E. Apollo flight crew vestibular assessment in biomedical results of Apollo, NASA SP-368, National Aeronautics and Space Administration; 1975.
Graybiel A, Miller E, Homick J. Experiment M131: human vestibular function in biomedical results of Skylab, NASA SP 377; 1977.
Clément G, Reschke MF. Neuroscience in space. New York: Springer; 2010.
Linenger J. Training Russian style. In: Off the planet. New York: McGraw Hill; 2000.
French F, Burgess C. In the shadow of the moon: a challenging journey to tranquility, 1965–1969. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; 2007.
Graybiel A, et al. Susceptibility to motion sickness. In: Johnson RS, Dietlein LF, editors. Biomedical results from Skylab (NASA SP–377), vol. 36. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office; 1977. p. 74–91.
Fernandez C, Goldberg JM. Physiology of peripheral neurons innervating otolith organs of the squirrel monkey. I. Response to static tilts and to long-duration centrifugal force. J Neurophysiol. 1976;39(5):970–84.
Clément G, Reschke MF. Neuroscience in space. New York: Springer; 2008. p. 79.
Buckey JC Jr, Homick JL. “The Neurolab Spacelab Mission: Neurospace Research in Space” (NASA SP-2003-535). Houston: NASA JSC; 2003.
Clément G, Reschke MF. Neuroscience in space. New York: Springer; 2008. p. 85.
Purves D, Augustine GJ, Fitzpatrick D, Hall WC, LaMantia AS, McNamara JO, Willams SM. The vestibular system. Neuroscience. Sunderland: Sinauer Associates; 2004.
Thornton WE, Linder BJ, Moore TP, Pool SL. Gastrointestinal motility in space motion sickness. Aviat Space Environ Med. 1987;58(9 Pt 2):A16–21.
Guyton AC, Hall JE. Physiology of gastrointestinal disorders. Textbook of medical physiology. Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier; 2000. p. 764–70.
Napadow V, Sheehan JD, Kim J, LaCount LT, Park K, Kaptchuk TJ, Rosen BR, Kuo B. The brain circuitry underlying the temporal evolution of nausea in humans. Cereb Cortex. 2013;23(4):806–13.
Hayes J. The first decade of ISS exercise: lessons learned on expeditions 1–25. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2015;86(12):A1–6.
Clément G, Wood SJ. Rocking or rolling–perception of ambiguous motion after returning from space. PLoS One. 2014;9(10):e111107.
Chen W, Chao JG, Wang JK, Chen XW, Tan C. Subjective vertical conflict theory and space motion sickness. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2016;87(2):128–36.
Salvi JD, Maoiléidigh DÓ, Fabella BA, Tobin M, Hudspeth AJ. Control of a hair bundle’s mechanosensory function by its mechanical load. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2015;112(9):E1000–9.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Glossary
- Atmospheric reentry
-
Return to Earth in a spacecraft.
- Autonomic nervous system
-
Predominant portion of nervous system that functions automatically and unconsciously.
- Emesis (syn.: vomit)
-
Ejection of material in stomach/bowel through mouth.
- Emesis Center
-
Collection of nerve cells in brain stem that coordinates, controls vomiting.
- Emesis System
-
Three collections of interconnected cells (emesis center, nausea center and chemical trigger zone, or CTZ) in brain stem that receive a variety of inputs whose outputs control gastrointestinal (GI) sensations, nausea and vomiting.
- Fail safe
-
A system mode that protects a system from further damage in event of component or subsystem failure.
- Glottis
-
Valve in throat normally open to air for lungs that closes against liquids or solids going into or out of the esophagus.
- g vector (as used here)
-
Magnitude and direction of gravitational force of attraction of the Earth’s mass on or near its surface.
- Motility
-
Spontaneous motion, in this case of the GI tract that normally propels food through the tract.
It is under neurological and hormonal control.
- Motion sickness (MS)
-
Also known as kinetosis, a more or less common set of GI autonomic and unpleasant sensations triggered by the vestibular system in response to motions or simulated motions outside the subject’s usual experience.
It is used here in that context, but MS in weightlessness is produced by abnormal sensitivity to motion from failure of the otolith sensors that continues until reprogramming occurs.
- Nucleus (pl., −ei)
-
In this context a collection of nerve cells, often in a nodule, usually interconnected and with a system function. Multiple inputs from sensors and other cells may be input, processed, integrated and used to produce outputs.
- Orientation
-
As used here, it is spatial orientation, usually the relation of body axis to g vector.
- Otolithic
-
Related to the vestibular sensors that detect gravitational orientation by weight of dense crystals once called otoliths (Gk.: ear stones).
- Spacecraft exit
-
Exit from spacecraft on Earth.
- Space Motion Sickness (SMS)
-
GI autonomic signs and symptoms produced by a intrinsic conflict in the vestibular otolith sensors produced by weightlessness. It is resolved by reprogramming in the vestibular system in 1–3 days. The conflict is independent of motion, and a better term is needed; however, SMS is reluctantly used here since it is in universal use.
- Vestibular
-
Name derived from the convoluted spaces in bone housing the vestibular organs that comprise the inner ears, but it now applies to the ventricular system.
- Vestibular organs
-
Consist of three sensory systems in each inner ear, which are cochlear for hearing, otolith for orientation to the g vector and for sensing linear and angular motions, and semicircular canals for sensing angular motion.
- Vestibular system
-
Consists of the vestibular organs, bilateral vestibular nuclei in the brain stem and numerous areas in the upper brain.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thornton, W., Bonato, F. (2017). Space Motion Sickness and Vestibular Adaptation to Weightlessness. In: The Human Body and Weightlessness. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32829-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32829-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32828-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32829-4
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)