[Changes in the direction of vestibulomotor responses in the process of adaptation to prolonged static head turning in man].

Vestibulomotor responses were studied in normal blindfold subjects in the upright posture during adaptation to maintaining the head turned to the left up to the extreme position for 10 min. The head was maintained in that position either passively or actively. In 5 out of 12 subjects tested, adaptation to the unusual head position resulted in a gradual decrease of the appreciated angle of the head position. The error in appreciating the head position reached as much as 70-80 degrees. The direction of the vestibulomotor response was found to change in parallel with the appreciated head orientation. Thus, under mismatch between the perceived and actual head positions the direction of the vestibulomotor response corresponded to the spatial perception rather than to the actual head orientation.