GyroStim Therapy: What It Is and What's Known

How Does GyroStim Work?

Whole-body rotation looks like one of the stranger tools the clinic uses. For someone who already feels lightheaded or dizzy or has headaches, spinning in something that looks like an amusement park ride can sound like the last thing they need. Our team uses it to calibrate the senses that tell you where your head and body are in space, particularly relative to gravity.

The device lets the clinic pair the way the eyes move with the way the inner ear and the body perceive movement, all at the same time. Our team sets the plane of movement and the dose and monitors the response. In our team's view, that gives a reliable signal from the visual and vestibular systems together, so the brain areas that combine them can be trained.

What Problem Is GyroStim Meant to Solve?

In the clinic's view, many neurological symptoms come down to perception: whether you're accurately processing what's happening around you and within you. It's hard to escape gravity on this planet, so matching every signal to where gravity puts you is a big part of moving through the world. In our team's experience, many of the common symptoms after a neurological injury are ones that misplace where you are in space.

The inner ear's 3 balance canals are carved into the skull and sit at roughly right angles to one another, one for each way the head can turn. In a CT study of 44 inner ears, the angles between canals averaged 90 to 94 degrees and varied by several degrees from person to person (Della Santina, 2005). Because no 2 skulls are shaped exactly alike, the canals are rarely perfectly aligned. In the clinic's model, an area of the brainstem our team calls the neural integrator matches the signals from both ears, the eyes and the body and adjusts them, so the brain can make imperfect inputs work. In our team's view, when that area, or the areas that calibrate it and feed it, is injured, the brain loses some of its ability to make those adjustments on the fly. In the clinic's experience, that's where people hit a ceiling and stop progressing. Our team uses whole-body rotation, in combination with other tools, to stimulate that area so it can calibrate again.

The clinic compares it to a map app in a car. When the map is slightly off, the arrow shows you somewhere you aren't and has to wait to recalibrate. Driving, a busy store or a ball game send the neural integrator more information at once, and in the clinic's model it can lag, which people describe as a feeling of not knowing where they are in space. One way our team measures this sense is subjective visual vertical: with every visual cue blocked, you line up what you think is straight up and down, and the clinic aims for readings under about 2 degrees. For the wider picture of balance problems, see our team's 5 types of vestibular dysfunction and why some people feel dizzy in elevators.

Out of sync Recalibrated

Replay

Can GyroStim Help POTS?

This is the clinic's reasoning, and no study has tested it in POTS. Hypoperfusion symptoms, the ones tied to getting enough blood into the head, depend on automatic reflexes, and our team ties those reflexes to an accurate sense of where you are in space. In our team's view, the autonomic system uses that sense to help run blood flow to the head, breathing and temperature regulation. So the clinic uses whole-body rotation to improve the brain's sense of where the body is in space, which our team links to the automatic delivery of blood to the head. Our POTS treatment guide shows where vestibular work fits with the rest of a plan.

Research on motion and POTS is at an early stage. A 2026 study put 10 people with POTS and a past mild brain injury, and 10 healthy controls, through tilt tests and a motion sled. On standard head-up tilt, heart rate rose more in the POTS group. In a 20 degree static tilt, the 2 groups didn't differ, while a dynamic tilt of 20 degrees each way brought larger heart rate, blood pressure and cardiac output responses in the POTS group. The authors suggest that balance-driven control of heart rate and blood pressure may be affected in this group. The study was small and tested no treatment.

Is GyroStim Used After a Concussion?

The clinic uses whole-body rotation for problems sensing where you are in space, which are common after neurological injuries, including injury to the neural integrator or the areas that feed it.

The closest published work is a 2015 study of 98 combat veterans with PTSD after combat-related brain injuries. Their brain and vestibular rehabilitation included off-axis whole-body rotation alongside gaze, head movement, pursuit and saccade exercises, and the paper doesn't name the device. Before treatment, 75 veterans were in the 2 most severe PTSD categories, and 1 week after it, 48 were. Only 14 of the 98 came back for the 3-month check, so the longer-term result is unclear. The veterans served as their own controls with no separate control group, treatment was tailored to each veteran, and the study was run by the clinicians who delivered the program. Rotation was one part of a package and the outcome was PTSD severity, so the study can't show what rotation alone does. For concussion care more broadly, see post-concussion syndrome treatment and how the clinic treats post-concussion symptoms.

What Does the Research Show About GyroStim?

A PubMed search for GyroStim returns 0 studies as of November 2026. Europe PMC's single match is a 2024 human centrifuge experiment and computational model of how the balance system adapts to altered gravity, and it doesn't test GyroStim or any treatment.

The nearest randomized work is in mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS). In a 2024 study, 43 people with MdDS were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments and followed for 6 months. Group 1 had a progressively stronger series of slow back-and-forth chair rotation around a vertical axis, paired with conflicting visual stimuli. Group 2 had an established protocol of head tilts and visual stimulation. Symptom ratings were at least halved at first in 43% of Group 1 and 80% of Group 2. Most Group 1 responders kept a similar improvement through 6 months, while in Group 2 symptoms often returned. It's a different device, a different condition and a different protocol, so it isn't evidence for GyroStim. Our page on feeling better in the car and worse when it stops covers the MdDS pattern.

Question	Study	Who	What it shows
Does slow rotation ease MdDS?	2024 randomized study	43 people with MdDS	Symptoms at least halved at first in 43% (rotation) and 80% (head tilts); most rotation responders kept the gain at 6 months, while head-tilt symptoms often returned; different device and condition
Does rehab that includes rotation ease PTSD after combat brain injury?	2015 before and after study	98 combat veterans with PTSD after brain injury	PTSD severity fell after a multi-part program; uncontrolled, run by the treating clinicians; rotation's own effect unknown
Does motion change heart rate and blood pressure in POTS?	2026 comparison study	10 people with POTS and mild brain injury, 10 controls	Larger responses to dynamic tilt in POTS; no treatment tested
Does GyroStim help POTS, concussion or dizziness?	None found	None	No published study

What Is a GyroStim Session Like?

People often expect to be whipping around in circles. A lot of the time, the clinic uses slow, controlled movements at small doses, and for many people, in our team's experience, a small dose works well. The clinic has used GyroStim, or a device like it, for over a decade. Rotation is one tool among several. Our page on the 5 types of vestibular dysfunction walks through 1 patient's plan, where rotation was part of the first of 3 steps.

Our team tests how brain blood flow, breathing and heart rate respond when you stand, to find which part of the system is carrying the most.

GyroStim Therapy: FAQ