Investigating mechanisms involved in vestibular substitution

前庭和其他感觉系统（视觉，体感和听觉）之间的相互作用对几种功能至关重要，如凝视稳定，姿势控制和身体表征。当其中一种感觉被改变时，补偿现象允许至少部分地恢复与受损的感觉系统相关的功能。前庭补偿是基于几个概念，如恢复，习惯化和适应。适应包括感觉替代，其依赖于使用完整的感觉系统来补偿减少的前庭输入。与前庭系统相关的反射和感知功能为研究感觉替代提供了一个独特的窗口，因为大多数这些功能涉及多感觉输入。虽然一些研究表明，感觉替代是有效的一些人，观察到的高度个体间的差异，但破坏了结果的推广。因此，必须进一步发展与前庭和其他感觉系统之间的相互作用有关的基础知识，以更好地理解这种现象，并最终优化感觉替代。本研究计划的长期目标是揭示非前庭感觉对前庭反射和知觉功能的贡献。在接下来的五年里，该计划将致力于研究健康和听觉前庭损伤个体的身体表征上的听觉前庭和体感前庭相互作用的机制。研究健康和听觉前庭受损的人将加深我们的知识的感觉替代所涉及的机制，通过观察前庭系统的可塑性的程度。为了完成拟议的一组研究，我们将使用电前庭刺激，生物力学分析（动作捕捉，力平台），行为和感知方法。从这个拟议的计划产生的结果不仅将提供必要的知识，追求前庭可塑性的机制进行调查，但也将提供前庭替代的基本概念，开发各种技术，以优化感觉替代。

Interactions between the vestibular and other sensory systems (vision, somatosensory and auditory) are crucial to several functions such as gaze stabilization, postural control and body representation. When one of the senses is altered, a phenomenon of compensation allows to recover, at least in part, functions associated with the impaired sensory system. Vestibular compensation is based on several concepts such as restoration, habituation and adaptation. Adaptation comprise sensory substitution which relies on the use of intact sensory systems to compensate the reduced vestibular input. The reflexes and perceptual functions associated with the vestibular system offers a unique window to study sensory substitution as most of these functions involve multisensory input. Although some studies suggest that sensory substitution is effective for some individuals, a high degree of inter-individual variability is observed which yet undermines the generalization of the results. It becomes therefore imperative to further develop fundamental knowledge related to the interactions between the vestibular and other sensory systems to better understand this phenomenon and ultimately optimize sensory substitution. The long-term goal of this research program is to reveal the contribution of non-vestibular senses on vestibular reflexes and perceptual functions. In the next five years, this program will aim at studying the mechanisms governing audio-vestibular and somatosensory-vestibular interactions on body representation in both healthy and audio-vestibular lesioned individuals. Studying both healthy and audio-vestibular impaired individuals will deepen our knowledge of the mechanisms involved in sensory substitution by observing the extent of plasticity in the vestibular system. To complete the proposed set of studies, we will use electrical vestibular stimulation, biomechanical analysis (motion capture, force platform), behavioral and perceptual methods. The results stemming from this proposed program will not only provide essential knowledge required to pursue investigations on mechanisms involved in vestibular plasticity, but will also provide fundamental concepts on vestibular substitution to develop various technologies to optimize sensory substitution.