Grant: Project Grant

Most of our activities performed during the course of a day require movement. For example, commuting from home to work requires walking and, sometimes, running after public transit. Such "self-motion" is sensed by the vestibular system, which contributes to vital functions such as correctly perceiving movement and maintaining balance. It is estimated that 22% of the population suffers from dysfunction of the vestibular system, which can lead to blurred vision, vertigo, and chronic unsteadiness. However, all of our knowledge about how the vestibular system contributes to our perception of self-motion is based on sinusoids that do not at all resemble the movements that we make in our everyday lives. Our previous work has shown that such "natural self-motion" is represented in a fundamentally different way than artificial sinusoids by the vestibular endorgans as well as their downtream target neurons. The current proposals aims to continue these studies in higher order thalamic and cortical brain areas. Overall, it is expected that these areas represent natural self-motion in a fundamentally different manner than artificial self-motion, which will lead to a comprehensive rethinking of how the vestibular system contributes to our perception of self-motion, which will be crucial towards developing new treatment options for patients suffering from vestibular dysfunction.