COMPARISON OF GRADUAL AND RAPID ONSET RUNS IN A SHORT-ARM CENTRIFUGATION

A gradual onset run (GOR) in a short-arm centrifugation was performed on ten healthy students. The centrifuge had a 1.8 m radius, and the su bjects sat on a chair in a cabin. The Gz force increased to 2.2 Gz at 0.1 degrees/sec(2) for 32 min. and the same Gz-level was maintained fo r 20 min. Three out of ten subjects completed the whole protocol; the load on the others was terminated because of symptoms or increased hea rt rate. There were few symptoms such as vertigo, that was a common pr oblem with a rapid onset run (ROR) in former experiments, due to the s hort-arm centrifugation. The changes of the flicker test after the loa d were much less in the GOR protocol than in the ROR protocol, even in the terminated group. GOR seemed preferable to ROR in preventing vert igo even though it took longer to reach the necessary G load.