How actions alter sensory processing: Reafference in the vestibular system

Our vestibular organs are simultaneously activated by our own actions as well as by stimulation from the external world. The ability to distinguish sensory inputs that are a consequence of our own actions (vestibular reafference) from those that result from changes in the external world (vestibular exafference) is essential for perceptual stability and accurate motor control. Recent work in our laboratory has focused on understanding how the brain distinguishes between vestibular reafference and exafference. Single-unit recordings were made in alert rhesus monkeys during passive and voluntary (i.e., active) head movements. We found that neurons in the first central stage of vestibular processing (vestibular nuclei), but not the primary vestibular afferents, can distinguish between active and passive movements. In order to better understand how neurons differentiate active from passive head motion, we systematically tested neuronal responses to different combinations of passive and active motion resulting from rotation of the head-on-body and/or head-and-body in space. We found that during active movements, a cancellation signal was generated when the activation of proprioceptors matched the motor-generated expectation.