Forehead Sweating during Motion Sickness

摘要

Forehead sweating was monitored on fifteen subjects during the elicitation of motion sickness by vestibular stimulation. An Electrochemical sweat sensor and a skin-resistance technique were used simultaneously to detect the sweat responses. None of the subjects showed any arousal type sweat responses at the time of onset of the vestibular stimulation. Two of the subjects showed no evidence of any forehead sweating despite an advanced degree of nausea. For the remaining thirteen subjects, a forehead sweat response was obtained after a latent period that ranged anywhere from 5 seconds to 4 minutes. Once initiated, the response tended to increase in magnitude as long as the stimulus was continued. This pattern of response is characteristic of most motion-sickness symptomatology. For certain subjects the forehead sweat response was compared with their dorsal-hand response obtained from a previous run carried out under the same standard conditions. These comparisons suggest that the forehead is a less active sweat area than the dorsal hand during motion sickness. (Author)