Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

The modulation of vestibular reflexes during self-generated head-neck movements

Objective

Stable head posture is something most people take for granted, and is essential to perform daily activities such as balancing, navigating and moving. Neck muscles generate head motion to establish a stable reference frame for the visual and vestibular (i.e. balance organ) systems, allowing the rest of our body to engage in other motor behaviours. The vestibular system provides information regarding head motion in space, and is particularly important for neck muscle control. However, for people suffering from vestibular and neck movement disorders, even the smallest head movement, whether self-generated or imposed, can induce episodes of dizziness, imbalance and fatigue. This proposal investigates how vestibular information is modulated by the nervous system to facilitate head movements, knowledge which is crucial to understand vestibular and neck movement disorders, and eventually develop therapeutic protocols.

Head motion will be manipulated using novel robotic devices to study how vestibular reflexes are modulated in healthy volunteers during externally imposed and self-generated movements. A unique motion coupled electrical vestibular stimulation will provide an artificial sensation of head movement that mimics normal or conflicting relationships with the intended motion. Vestibular reflexes will be quantified using stochastic stimulation of the vestibular organ together with system identification to estimate the sensory modulation process that occurs during head movements. This project takes a multidisciplinary approach, using engineering techniques to address physiological questions, generating knowledge that is applicable to the medical field. The fundamental insight into vestibular control of neck muscles will help understand how humans achieve skilled motor performance and relate to the difficulties patients with vestibular disorders face in performing gaze change and navigation tasks.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IOF - International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF)

Coordinator

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT DELFT
EU contribution
€ 203 633,30
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0