Effects of Galvanic vestibular stimulation on cognitive function

Although imaging studies suggest activation of cortical areas by vestibular input, there is little evidence of an adverse effect of non-veridical vestibular input on cognitive function. To test the hypothesis that degraded vestibular afferent input adversely affects cognition, we compared performance on a cognitive test battery in a group undergoing suprathreshold bilateral bipolar Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) with a control group receiving no GVS or subthreshold stimulation. The battery consisted of six cognitive tests as follows: reaction time, dual tasking, Stroop, mental rotation, perspective-taking and matching-to-sample, as well as a simple visuomotor (manual tracking) task. Subjects performed the test battery before, during and after suprathreshold GVS exposure or subthreshold stimulation. Suprathreshold GVS significantly increased error rate for the match-to-sample and perspective-taking tasks relative to the subthreshold group, demonstrating a negative effect of non-veridical vestibular input in these specific cognitive tasks. Reaction time, dual tasking, mental rotation and manual tracking were unaffected by GVS exposure. The adverse effect of suprathreshold GVS on perspective taking but not mental rotation is consistent with imaging studies, which have demonstrated that egocentric mental transformations (perspective taking) occur primarily in cortical areas that receive vestibular input (the parietal–temporal junction and superior parietal lobule), whereas object-based transformations (mental rotation) occur in the frontoparietal region. The increased error rate during the match-to-sample task is likely due to interference with hippocampal processing related to spatial memory, as suggested by imaging studies on vestibular patients.