Time-course profiling of behavioral phenotypes and Ywhah/ERK signaling expression within the vestibular region of the brainstem during motion sickness habituation.

Authors

Xue Yue, Chenxi Jia, Lihong Zhai, Jie Deng, Dongjun Yang, Zhanguo Jin

Published in

Frontiers in neuroscience. Volume 20. Pages 1955920. Epub Oct 07, 2026.

Abstract

Motion sickness habituation represents a core neuroplastic model for investigating vestibular disorder adaptation, yet its brain-region-specific temporal molecular mechanisms remain poorly defined. Here, we adopted multi-brain-region proteomic screening combined with time-series molecular validation to characterize key molecular dynamics during motion sickness habituation. Adult mice received 15 consecutive days of sinusoidal rotational stimulation, and model establishment was verified via four behavioral indices. A self-constructed five-dimensional weighted scoring system based on proteomic data confirmed that the vestibular region of the brainstem exhibited the most prominent molecular response among the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and brainstem vestibular region. Candidate molecules were further screened by integrating network centrality, statistical significance, functional relevance, druggability, and neurological disease correlation. Reverse transcription quantitative real-time PCR and Western blot were performed to detect the expression changes of candidate proteins in brainstem vestibular region tissues of the complete time-series restraint-only control group and habituation group. Temporal validation revealed progressive downregulation of Ywhah and a time-dependent increase in the ratio of phosphorylated Erk1/2 to total Erk1/2 in the vestibular region of the brainstem. The opposite expression trends of Ywhah and p-Erk1/2/total Erk1/2 first reached statistical significance on Day 5, indicating temporal coupling. In summary, this study delineates distinct temporal molecular patterns in the brainstem vestibular region during motion sickness habituation, with overlapping critical time windows for Ywhah suppression and ERK activation. These findings provide reliable longitudinal molecular evidence and promising candidate targets for further exploring the neuroplastic mechanisms of vestibular habituation.

PMID:
42909253
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.