Peripheral and central vestibular contributions to perception of rotation in healthy aging
department or school: Education, Faculty of
department or school: Kinesiology, School of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Donald, Joshua Reginald
issued: 2025-05-01T23:25:13Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Master of Science - MSc
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: The vestibular system, located bilaterally in the inner ear, plays an integral role in maintaining standing balance and interpreting our perception of self-motion. Healthy aging causes anatomical deterioration in both peripheral/brainstem vestibular regions and central vestibular integration structures including thalamus, cortex, and cerebellum. While traditional assessments of rotational perception rely on minimal detection thresholds, they fail to examine central integration of vestibular information using suprathreshold stimulation. Moreover, these detection threshold protocols often fail to identify well-known effects of aging on the vestibular system. Therefore, this thesis investigated how healthy aging affects peripheral and central vestibular perception of rotation using a suprathreshold stimulation paradigm. Twenty healthy older adults (range: 60-78 years old) and twenty-five healthy young adults (range: 18-29 years old) performed a rotation perception task on a custom-built rotating platform. Participants tracked platform rotation using a rotary dial while experiencing suprathreshold pseudorandom sinusoidal rotations (0.02-0.11 Hz; ±30°) with eyes closed and white noise masking. Peripheral/brainstem vestibular function was assessed by testing the visual vestibulo-ocular reflex (VVOR) using identical pseudorandom sinusoids. Visual-vestibular interactions were evaluated using the subjective visual vertical test (SVV), where participants determined when a vertical line returned to 0° after 30° clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. Performance metrics included frequency-based measures of coherence, gain, and phase between platform and dial rotation, VVOR gain and phase comparing eye velocity to head velocity, and SVV error from both rotation directions. Older adults demonstrated significantly lower coherence (p=0.002) and significantly higher phase shift (p<0.001) in the rotation perception task, indicating impaired central integration of vestibular inform…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/90949
note: PERIPHERAL AND CENTRAL VESTIBULAR CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERCEPTION OF ROTATION IN HEALTHY AGING by Joshua Reginald Donald B.Sc., Mount Royal University, 2020 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Kinesiology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2025 © Joshua Reginald Donald, 2025 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the thesis entitled: Peripheral and central vestibular contributions to perception of rotation in healthy aging submitted by Joshua Reginald Donald in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Kinesiology Examining Committee: Dr. Mark G. Carpenter, Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisor Dr. Romeo Chua, Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Dr. J. Timothy Inglis, Professor, School of Kinesiology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract The vestibular system, located bilaterally in the inner ear, plays an integral role in maintaining standing balance and interpreting our perception of self-motion. Healthy aging causes anatomical deterioration in both peripheral/brainstem vestibular regions and central vestibular integration structures including thalamus, cortex, and cerebellum. While traditional assessments of rotational perception rely on minimal detection thresholds, they fail to examine central integration of vestibular information using suprathreshold stimulation. Moreover, these detection threshold protocols often fail to identify well-known effects of aging on the vestibular system. Therefore, this thesis investigated how healthy aging affects peripheral and central vestibular perception of rotation using a suprathreshold stimulation paradigm. Twenty healthy older adults (range: 60-78 years old) and twenty-five healthy young adults (range: 18-29 y…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2025-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448704
language: eng
degree discipline: Kinesiology
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Carpenter, Mark G.
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90949