
Inventor May Have Cured Motion Sickness Without Drugs - aresant
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/11/inventor-may-have-cured-motion-sickness-without-drugs-and-could-mean-lot-us-military/152960/
======
jonshariat
Another article hiding the main information in a wall of text.

Here is the relevant information for those interested:

""Enter a young inventor named Samuel Owen, who has developed a prototype
device called the OtoTech, from Otolith Labs. Worn on a headband behind the
ear, it uses subtle vibrations to change the way the brain computes the fact
that the body that it’s attached to is in motion. Early tests show it relieves
motion sickness without the side effects of drugs, Owen said, though he admits
the science is so young that it’s not clear just how.

The vibrations emanating from the OtoTech gently target two of the four fibers
that carry data about body motion to the brain via a system of inner ear
sensors called the vestibulocochlear nerve. “Two [of the four
vestibulocochlear nerve fibers] go to the brain, two go to your reflexes,”
Owen said. The trick is to affect the former and not the latter.

“The working hypothesis is that [the vibration] causes a chaotic and
noninformative stimulus to go to the brain. Somewhere, probably the
cerebellum, there’s a filtering mechanism that filters out noninformative
sensed information. It’s the reason you don’t notice the shirt on your back
right now,” he said.

In other words, while you remain consciously aware that you’re moving, the
balance portion of your brain stops noticing the fact; the data has been
drowned out in white noise from the device.""

~~~
hinkley
I found that for myself and for a bunch of friends that chewing gum
accomplished this.

Discovered this on a fairly bumpy flight, (gum is lousy for ear pressure
imbalances but I carry it anyway). After that I began experimenting on others
and it usually worked for them too.

~~~
wpietri
I'll have to try that. My one weird trick here is a little different.

Long ago I read somebody's theory (Bruce Chawin's, maybe?) that the reason so
many poisons cause dizziness is that the inner ear is an extremely delicate
mechanism and so is easily thrown off such that visual perception and
positional sense no longer matches what the ear is saying. The theory further
suggests that the brain is evolved to work that backwards: if the body is
sufficiently dizzy, it has been poisoned, so it had better empty the stomach.

For me the trick is to keep motion perception in sync with the inner ear. So
if I'm on a boat, I'll aim my head in the direction we're heading and think of
myself as moving with the boat. Same thing with cars: on a bumpy or swervy
taxi ride I'll look straight ahead and think of myself as moving with the car.

It sounds ridiculous, but it works well for me. Living in SF, I've had many
chances to try it out.

~~~
dbt00
This was the home remedy for carsickness my parents used with me when I was a
kid. "Look at the horizon" is how they put it. Within a couple of seconds I'd
internalize the movement of the car and my gut would stabilize.

~~~
hinkley
I was a miserable vomitous mass as a child and I still can't read in the car.
The horizon tends to stop progression of symptoms but is pretty slow as a
recovery method. It's pretty cold comfort for someone who feels like their
guts are trying to escape.

At some point in late grade school I figured out it was a better use of my
time to start "working the problem" rather than hold out for some folk wisdom
to save me, from car sickness to sore throats (keep your neck warm to prevent
laryngitis) and everything in between.

Hanging a hand out the window works much, much faster. Barring that, anything
cold on the wrist will help, but it's hard to find the right spot while
distressed. Air, window pane in the winter, ice, icepack (best runner up), or
a can of soda.

------
chris_overseas
Followup comments from the inventor are here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/9ywify/inventor_may...](https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/9ywify/inventor_may_have_cured_motion_sickness_without/eac264j/?st=jpsqeepk&sh=26c8eb62)

(found via the Oculus Go article comments from earlier today, here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18696840)
)

~~~
chime
I wonder if this can explain the trick I learned on reddit on how to relieve
the ringing-tone (tinnitus) by snapping your fingers on to your skull:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_light...](https://np.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/3l3uri/these_guys_lighting_a_mortar_shell_in_their_garage/cv3474n/)

In other words, can percussion on the back of your head somehow reset/affect
the nerves deep inside your head that send signals from your ear to your
brain? For tinnitus, it's the audio signal. For motion-sickness, it's the
balance signal.

~~~
btym
I always assumed that the loud noise reduces sensitivity, tuning out some
quiet signals like tinnitus. Same thing as not being able to hear well after a
loud concert.

------
mcbuilder
It's always struck me as curious that some game engines cause greater motion
sickness that others, despite being similar. For instance I can play UT 2004
and HL1 based engines all day, but put me in front of a Source engine game and
I want to barf after 15 minutes. Doom 1 engine makes me nauseous, but Build
engine not so. Obviously it's the way my particular brain is picking up on the
subtles cues from the engine, so I'd love to be able to strap something on my
head and be able to enjoy more titles.

~~~
theandrewbailey
If I feel nauseated during a game, I look for some way to increase the field
of view. That always does the trick for me.

~~~
bearforcenine
Several years ago, I ran into the exact same nausea with the Source engine as
the GP, but when I increased the FOV the problem went away.

I've run into nausea with other games that have a narrow FOV. Increasing the
FOV (when possible) usually fixes the problem.

As far as I understand, the late Total Biscuit was similar. He frequently
advocated for FOV sliders in games. I greatly appreciate his help making FOV
sliders more popular.

~~~
ZeikJT
Teared up a bit reading that last paragraph; I'll never forget his dogged
insistence on checking for FOV sliders in options menus.

------
cr0sh
This is an interesting take on the technology of vestibular stimulation.

Something to keep in mind is that this technology has been around for a while
in the medical field for treatment of balance disorders.

Also - I recall back in the very early 2000s there was a company that came out
with a vestibular stimulation system for VR use - the idea was to induce the
feeling of motion. You could plug it into your computer, and it had a Windows
API that you could control it with.

They were still in a development phase; you could purchase a device and the
API for developing with - it wasn't a retail product at the time. Ultimately,
the dot-com crash took them out and they disappeared before they really got
off the ground (also, VR was in it's "winter" \- that didn't help).

~~~
rizwan
I attended SIGGRAPH 2005, and there was a group in the booths that had some
headset you would put on that would alter your balance to make you walk in
different directions. They had a video playing if someone walking with this
device and blind folds on, and someone with a joystick could turn them left
and right.

Looked it up and it appears to be a similar type of technology: Galvanic
Vestibular Stimulation:

[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1187315](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1187315)

------
Valmar
A few grams of whole ginger root is great for motion sickness, and the side
effects are little more than a mild burning sensation in the gut.

It completely kills any horrible car sickness I get from any small motions.

~~~
cwkoss
Mythbusters found ginger is more effective than any other OTC motion sickness
cure.

~~~
Nomentatus
It is a remarkably powerful antihistamine - of drug-like strength.

~~~
cwkoss
Interesting, I wonder if it would also work for itchiness.

------
craftinator
“The availability of immersive learning environments like virtual-augmented-
mixed reality afforded by commercial off-the-shelf technology fosters has the
potential to create the paradigm shift necessary to deliver the most ready
force ever known,” said Lt. Col. Matthew Strohmeyer.

Ya know what else will create the paradigm shift to deliver the most ready
force ever known? Fire this asshat and promote someone who can speak
meaningful sentences. After a decade in the Marine Corps, I continue to be
amazed by the non-speak these officers use to cover their incompetence.

~~~
shaki-dora
It's somewhat overwrought, but there actually is some signal in that noise:

\- Using off-the-shelf products, instead of bespoke projects. That was
historically somewhat rare in the military, I believe?

\- "virtual-augmented-mixed reality" seems to be intended to make people think
about more than just "virtual" reality, which is a somewhat tired concept

\- "most ready force" is a reflection of the military's priorities (not
winning world wars, but being flexible)

\- "paradigm shift" Ok, I don't have much of an excuse for that one

Overall, I think there's a lot to unpack in that sentence. And I would
struggle to repackage it in anything less than a paragraph, or a list as
above.

------
wheels
A little of an aside: I've often wondered if motion sickness is less prevalent
in populations that got to their current locations largely by long ship rides
(i.e. most Americans). These days sea sickness is a mild inconvenience, but I
would imagine that in the 1700s, constantly vomiting for several weeks would
reduce one's chances of passing on their genes.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Sounds legit, few million years of going on a long ship ride as a rite of
passage (get it?) would do that.

------
nuguy
Well, I never thought I would change my position on VR but here we are. If
this works it will make VR viable.

It’s so disappointing to remember the hype in 2012 and then look at VR in 2018
only to see an anemic library of titles, little adoption, and not much
improvement of the actual headsets. It’s pathetic.

I’ve heard of some headsets in the pipes that are supposed to actually be
good. Extremely high resolution _and_ full field of view coverage are
absolutely required. There is no technological limit that is stopping a
headset like that from existing, and yet it doesn’t. Pimax maybe. Am I missing
one?

If you control motion sickness and have a headset like I described above, then
you have a minimum viable system. Going beyond that, we need non-discreet
light fields and perfect body motion capturing.

~~~
max76
> Extremely high resolution and full field of view coverage are absolutely
> required. There is no technological limit that is stopping a headset like
> that from existing, and yet it doesn’t.

GPUs are the technological limit.

The Vive and Rift push 2160 x 1200 pixels at 90Hz. 90Hz is the bare minimum
speed for VR. Nvidia's new RTX 2080 Ti (retail $1,200) cannot maintain 90Hz at
3840x2160 in most games. Two in SLI probably could, but that is much more
expensive than the original Vive/Rift CV1 GPU requirements were. We are
several generations of GPUs away from being able to double the VR resolution
while maintaining 90Hz for less than $600 worth of hardware.

~~~
TipVFL
We're getting very close to high quality and inexpensive eye-tracking
technology that will make it cheap and easy to implement foveated rendering in
VR headsets (basically, only rendering high quality where your eye is looking
in a completely unnoticeable manner). That will really drop the hardware
requirements and make high field of view/high resolution headsets totally
doable.

It's an exciting time for VR.

------
budadre75
I must try this. I've always had serious 3D motion sickness, I was just
looking at a friend playing Monster Hunter World for like 30 minutes and got
sick. And then I just couldn't look at the game screen anymore, it would
inflict sickness instantly. This is not even VR.

------
starbeast
I've been wondering for a while if you could overwrite the signal on the
vestibular nerve. This just drowns it in noise, but presumably it should be
possible to electrically excite the same fibers with a signal that matches
what you are seeing. I have heard that they do something similar already in
medicine for helping people with balance problems caused by the inner ear,
though I gather it has to be tweaked patient by patient.

------
giarc
Another recent invention to help with motion sickness.

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/could-these-
glasse...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/could-these-glasses-cure-
your-motion-sickness-180969722/)

The glasses are quite expensive (for something you would never wear outside of
the car).

~~~
mrfusion
You could make those pretty easily. I wonder if the peripheral ones are really
necessary?

~~~
giarc
When the glasses were posted earlier, I made a comment about making them out
of simple novelty straw glasses (like so
[https://goo.gl/UKrkbt](https://goo.gl/UKrkbt)). Add some coloured water, cut
and seal the ends and voila.

~~~
mrfusion
Great idea! I’ll give it a try.

------
samstave
I really would like to know what these would feel like while one is in a
sensory deprivation tank.

Or - what impact they have on deaf people (Specifically the idea of the
vibrations hitting parts of the inner ear - if external vibratory stimulations
have any impact in both of the above scenarios)

~~~
techdragon
There is a whole pile of research out there into deaf people and motion
sickness. The most interesting being that hearing loss due to certain kinds of
nerve damage can result in basically becoming immune to motion sickness. I’m
struggling to find the exact citation I want to share (I read it several years
ago now) at the moment, but I read about it while I was researching into the
early days of space flight, if I recall it came off of the early research as a
result of following up what was the cause of one test subject being utterly
immune to any attempt to make him motion sick. The end result being not very
useful for the practical aspects of spaceflight, but ending up with the
discovery that a group of people with a specific type of auditory nerve damage
are basically 100% immune to motion sickness is certainly an interesting
result in terms of understanding the cause of motion sickness.

~~~
ron_ej
Interesting. I am deaf, thanks to tumors on the auditory/vestibular nerves and
do experience pretty bad loss of balance issues, to the point where people
often think I am walking around drunk when I am not :) But I can't remember
ever experiencing motion sickness! Time to apply to NASA I guess.

------
n4kana
Noticed in the materials for the product: "Nearly Silent (<50dB)". Seems like
bogus copy - for every broadband acoustic measure of dB I'm aware of 50 dB
would be very non-silent.

------
maleta
...And That Could Mean a Lot to the US Military, well yes because US Military
travels around a globe very often. :\

------
coverband
I thought the Sea-Band Wristband[0] type of products already went there, even
for morning sickness relief?

[0] [https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/sea-band-
wristband/ID=prod...](https://www.walgreens.com/store/c/sea-band-
wristband/ID=prod2662944-product)

~~~
Retra
Why would those work?

~~~
jimnotgym
My son said, "how do these work, is it just the placebo effect?". I replied
that why would it matter if it was a placebo, as long as it worked?

But they did work, and he seemed happy enough conning himself.

~~~
Retra
I'm not your son. That you've found an explanation to convince a child to stop
asking questions isn't exactly relevant to me.

~~~
acct1771
The scientifically documented efficacy of the placebo effect _is_ , however.

~~~
jimnotgym
Exactly, and my son was smart enough to recognise that it may just be a
placebo, but with an amazing easy-going attitude was happy to see if this
placebo worked on him.

~~~
Retra
And next time your son has a headache, you'll give him the sea-band. The
placebo effect is a miracle cure that treats all kinds of things, right?

~~~
jimnotgym
Yes, indeed I note that often in drug trials they hand out the placebo with
the instructions "this is the drug to treat a different condition to the one
you have"

