Migraine and motion sickness: what is the link?

The brainstem is a structurally complex region, containing numerous ascending and descending fibres that converge on centres that regulate bodily functions essential to life. Afferent input from the cranial tissues and the special senses is processed, in part, in brainstem nuclei. In addition, brainstem centres modulate the flow of pain messages and other forms of sensory information to higher regions of the brain, and influence the general excitability of these cortical regions. Thus, disruptions in brainstem processing might evoke a complex range of unpleasant symptoms, vegetative changes and neurovascular disturbances and that, together, form attacks of migraine. Migraine is linked with various co-morbid conditions, the most prominent being motion sickness. Symptoms such as nausea, dizziness and headache are common to motion sickness and migraine; moreover, migraine sufferers have a heightened vulnerability to motion sickness. As both maladies involve reflexes that relay in the brainstem, symptoms may share the same neural circuitry. In consequence, subclinical interictal persistence of disturbances in these brainstem pathways could not only increase vulnerability to recurrent attacks of migraine but also increase susceptibility to motion sickness. Mechanisms that mediate symptoms of motion sickness and migraine are explored in this paper. The physiology of motion sickness and migraine is discussed, and neurotransmitters that may be involved in the manifestation of symptoms are reviewed. Recent findings have shed light on the relationship between migraine and motion sickness, and provide insights into the generation of migraine attacks

The Chemical Senses

Long-standing neglect of the chemical senses in the philosophy of perception is due, mostly, to their being regarded as ‘lower’ senses. Smell, taste, and chemically irritated touch are thought to produce mere bodily sensations. However, empirically informed theories of perception can show how these senses lead to perception of objective properties, and why they cannot be treated as special cases of perception modelled on vision. The senses of taste, touch, and smell also combine to create unified perceptions of flavour. The nature of these multimodal experiences and the character of our awareness of them puts pressure on the traditional idea that each episode of perception goes one or other of the five senses. Thus, the chemical senses, far from being peripheral to the concerns of the philosophy of perception, may hold important clues to the multisensory nature of perception in general

Smell, Taste, and Temperature Interfaces

Everyday life hinges on smell, taste, and temperature-based experiences, from eating to detecting potential hazards (e.g., smell of rotten food, microbial threats, and non-microbial threats such as from hazardous gases) to responding to thermal behavioral changes. These experiences are formative as visceral, vital signals of information, and contribute directly to our safety, well-being, and enjoyment. Despite this, contemporary technology mostly stimulates vision, audition, and - more recently - touch, unfortunately leaving out the senses of smell taste and temperature. In the last decade, smell, taste, and temperature interfaces have gained a renewed attention in the field of Human Computer Interaction, fueled by the growth of virtual reality and wearable devices. As these modalities are further explored, it is imperative to discuss underlying cultural contexts of these experiences, how researchers can robustly stimulate and sense these modalities, and in what contexts such multisensory technologies are meaningful. This workshop addresses these topics and seeks to provoke critical discussions around chemo- and thermo-sensory HCI

Third Wave or Winter? The Past and Future of Smell in HCI

Over the last hundred years, the integration of scent in technology could roughly be seen as having two public waves, analogous to virtual reality's three or four. These waves include the cinematic technologies of the 1960s and the rise of olfactory desktop peripherals and home fragrance technologies for the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s. In the last few decades, an impressive, multi-disciplinary effort in Human-Computer Interaction has been made to incorporate smell into interactive systems. This panel asks whether exciting recent developments in smell for Human-Computer Interaction mark the cusp of a third wave and whether the field is here to stay or should prepare for another winter

ENCODING OF SALTATORY TACTILE VELOCITY IN THE ADULT OROFACIAL SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM

Processing dynamic tactile inputs is a key function of somatosensory systems. Spatial velocity encoding mechanisms by the nervous system are important for skilled movement production and may play a role in recovery of motor function following neurological insult. Little is known about tactile velocity encoding in trigeminal networks associated with mechanosensory inputs to the face, or the consequences of movement. High resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the neural substrates of velocity encoding in the human orofacial somatosensory system during unilateral saltatory pneumotactile inputs to perioral hairy skin in 20 healthy adults. A custom multichannel, scalable pneumotactile array consisting of 7 TAC-Cells was used to present 5 stimulus conditions: 5 cm/s, 25 cm/s, 65 cm/s, ALL-ON synchronous activation, and ALL-OFF. The spatial organization of cerebral and cerebellar blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response as a function of stimulus velocity was analyzed using general linear modeling (GLM) of pooled group fMRI signal data. The sequential saltatory inputs to the lower face produced localized, predominantly contralateral BOLD responses in primary somatosensory (SI), secondary somatosensory (SII), primary motor (MI), supplemental motor area (SMA), posterior parietal cortices (PPC), and insula, whose spatial organization and intensity were highly dependent on velocity. Additionally, ipsilateral sensorimotor, insular and cerebellar BOLD responses were prominent during the lowest velocity (5 cm/s). Advisor: Steven M. Barlo

Oral Somatosensory Awareness

Oral somatosensory awareness refers to the somatic sensations arising within the mouth, and to the information these sensations provide about the state and structure of the mouth itself, and objects in the mouth. Because the oral tissues have a strong somatosensory innervation, they are the locus of some of our most intense and vivid bodily experiences. The salient pain of toothache, or the habit of running one's tongue over one's teeth when someone mentions "dentist", provide two very different indications of the power of oral somatosensory awareness in human experience and behaviour. This paper aims to review the origins and structure of oral somatosensory awareness, focussing on quantitative, mechanistic studies in humans. We first extend a model of levels of bodily awareness to the specific case of the mouth. We then briefly summarise the sensory innervation of oral tissues, and their projections in the brain. We next describe how these peripheral inputs give rise to perceptions of objects in the mouth, such as foods, liquids and oral devices, and also of the mouth tissues themselves. Finally, we consider the concept of a conscious mouth image, and the somatosensory basis of "mouth feel". The theoretical framework outlined in this paper is intended to facilitate scientific studies of this important site of human experience

ENCODING OF SALTATORY TACTILE VELOCITY IN THE ADULT OROFACIAL SOMATOSENSORY SYSTEM

Processing dynamic tactile inputs is a key function of somatosensory systems. Spatial velocity encoding mechanisms by the nervous system are important for skilled movement production and may play a role in recovery of motor function following neurological insult. Little is known about tactile velocity encoding in trigeminal networks associated with mechanosensory inputs to the face, or the consequences of movement. High resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the neural substrates of velocity encoding in the human orofacial somatosensory system during unilateral saltatory pneumotactile inputs to perioral hairy skin in 20 healthy adults. A custom multichannel, scalable pneumotactile array consisting of 7 TAC-Cells was used to present 5 stimulus conditions: 5 cm/s, 25 cm/s, 65 cm/s, ALL-ON synchronous activation, and ALL-OFF. The spatial organization of cerebral and cerebellar blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response as a function of stimulus velocity was analyzed using general linear modeling (GLM) of pooled group fMRI signal data. The sequential saltatory inputs to the lower face produced localized, predominantly contralateral BOLD responses in primary somatosensory (SI), secondary somatosensory (SII), primary motor (MI), supplemental motor area (SMA), posterior parietal cortices (PPC), and insula, whose spatial organization and intensity were highly dependent on velocity. Additionally, ipsilateral sensorimotor, insular and cerebellar BOLD responses were prominent during the lowest velocity (5 cm/s). Advisor: Steven M. Barlo

Diagnosis and management of neuropathic pain: Review of literature and recommendations of the Polish Association for the Study of Pain and the Polish Neurological Society – Part Two

Neuropathic pain may be caused by a variety of lesions or diseases of both the peripheral and central nervous system. The most common and best known syndromes of peripheral neuropathic pain are painful diabetic neuropathy, trigeminal and post-herpetic neuralgia, persistent post-operative and post-traumatic pain, complex regional pain syndrome, cancer-related neuropathic pain, HIV-related neuropathic pain and pain after amputation. The less common central pain comprises primarily central post-stroke pain, pain after spinal cord injury, central pain in Parkinson disease or in other neurodegenerative diseases, pain in syringomyelia and in multiple sclerosis. A multidisciplinary team of Polish experts, commissioned by the Polish Association for the Study of Pain and the Polish Neurological Society, has reviewed the literature on various types of neuropathic pain, with special focus on the available international guidelines, and has formulated recommendations on their diagnosis and treatment, in accordance with the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM). High quality studies on the efficacy of various medicines and medical procedures in many neuropathic pain syndromes are scarce, which makes the recommendations less robust

Diagnosis and management of neuropathic pain : review of literature and recommendations of the Polish Association for the Study of Pain and the Polish Neurological Society : part two

Neuropathic pain may be caused by a variety of lesions or diseases of both the peripheral and central nervous system. The most common and best known syndromes of peripheral neuropathic pain are painful diabetic neuropathy, trigeminal and post-herpetic neuralgia, persistent post-operative and post-traumatic pain, complex regional pain syndrome, cancer-related neuropathic pain, HIV-related neuropathic pain and pain after amputation. The less common central pain comprises primarily central post-stroke pain, pain after spinal cord injury, central pain in Parkinson disease or in other neurodegenerative diseases, pain in syringomyelia and in multiple sclerosis. A multidisciplinary team of Polish experts, commissioned by the Polish Association for the Study of Pain and the Polish Neurological Society, has reviewed the literature on various types of neuropathic pain, with special focus on the available international guidelines, and has formulated recommendations on their diagnosis and treatment, in accordance with the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM). High quality studies on the efficacy of various medicines and medical procedures in many neuropathic pain syndromes are scarce, which makes the recommendations less robust

Extending sensorimotor enactivism to flavour and smell

This thesis explores whether sensorimotor enactivism can be extended to flavour and smell perception. Sensorimotor enactivism claims that perceptual experience is constituted by skilful bodily engagement with the world. This engagement is said to be imbued with an implicit understanding of sensorimotor contingencies — law-like relations holding between bodily activity and sensory changes. The sensorimotor approach is intended as a non-visuocentric theory of perception, purporting to offer an account of all varieties of perceptual experience. However, until now there has been no sustained research into the application of sensorimotor enactivism to flavour and smell. Moreover, some researchers have argued that these senses are problem cases for the theory, and that facts about flavour and smell serve to refute the approach. This thesis responds to such worries and addresses the gap in the literature. It argues that sensorimotor enactivism can be extended to flavour and smell and offers a positive account of how we should think about our perceptual experiences through these modalities. Flavour and smell, it will be argued, do not allow immediate perceptual access to ordinary physical objects like roses and tomatoes. But rather, they give us immediate access to odours and flavours. In order to understand what our perceptual access to such entities consists in, this thesis draws upon tools from Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology allows for a modality-neutral way of thinking about perceptual organisation and helps us to arrive at a useful notion of ‘perceptual objecthood’. The entities we perceive through flavour and smell are much more diffuse than the ordinary three-dimensional objects that we perceive through sight, and the phenomenology of these kinds of perception seem particularly difficult to articulate. I argue that flavour and smell are still akin to other senses like vision in that they allow us to perceive the world as segregated into discrete perceptual objects, which exhibit figure-ground segregation and perceptual constancies. An understanding of perceptual organisation and objecthood allows for a more refined sensorimotor approach and will help us to arrive at solutions to further philosophical queries, such as whether flavour and smell are multisensory, and what the role of memory is in these perceptual experiences