Adaptive plasticity in the otolith-ocular reflex

This review focuses on the plasticity in the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), especially in the otolith-ocular reflex (OOR). The VOR is a mechanism for the production of rapid compensatory eye movements during head movements. The VOR is under adaptive control which corrects VOR performance when visual–vestibular mismatch arises during head movements. It has been demonstrated that chronic exposure to certain visual environments, those generated by magnifying lenses and reversing prisms, alter the gain and phase of VOR in the dark in numerous species. Most experiments concerning such modification of the VOR have used semicircular canal stimulation. The VOR consists of the semicircular-ocular reflex (ScOR) and the OOR. There are few results regarding the relationship between the gain of the ScOR and the OOR. This review summarizes the studies on plasticity in the OOR. In addition, the difficulty in evaluating the OOR using current conventional methods including earth horizontal axis (EHA) rotation, off-vertical axis rotation (OVAR) and linear sled, is discussed. We believe that the ScOR and the OOR share common neural pathways in such a way that a change in the synaptic efficacy of one pathway is accompanied by a change in the other.