[Duration of postacceleratory nystagmus in theory and experiment (author's transl)].

For special questions the validity of models has to be verified in each case. One possibility for controlling the model of the vestibulo-oculomotor system (completed with a neuronal integrator) which is used for automatic quantitative nystagmus analysis is the duration of the postacceleratory nystagmus. Theoretically for this parameter an upper limit exists which is independent of stimulus strength and influenced only by the system parameters and stimulus duration. Several experimental studies are compared with the theoretical calculations. As a result, the conception of the model is confirmed; however, nystagmus duration appears to be a valuable characteristic only under certain experimental conditions. For this reason, nystagmus duration is not considered as a parameter of the quantitative analysis.