Abstract
It is frequently experienced clinicaly that dizziness and various autonomic symptoms associated with inner ear disturbances are gradually compensated and disappear with lapse of time. To investigate this process of compensation of dizziness in animals, it is required to grasp exactly the time course changes in the symptom.
It is known that pica is induced in rats after administration of emetics or in association with induction of motion sickness. Using this pica as an indicator, we made observations for changes in the symptom of dizziness in rats unilaterally destroyed of the labyrinth.Pica was observed for 4 days after destruction of labyrinth.Administration of atropin tended to control this pica, suggesting involvement of the parasympathetic nerve system in this process.
With this model of rat destroyed of the labyrinth unilaterally, it is possible to make observations for changes in autonomic symptoms during the compensation process for peripheral vestibular disturbances exactly and quantitatively using pica as an indicator.From these findings, we believe that this experimental model is valuable for use in pharmacological studies and also for use as an experimental model for compensation process of peripheral vestibular disturbances.
