tilt VOR

OBJECTIVE: We investigated whether adaptive plasticity of the vestibulo-ocular reflex in humans occurs in response to visual-vestibular conflict stimulation during rotation about a 30° incline (off-vertical earth axis rotation, OVAR). METHODS: Subjects were 26 healthy adults (17 males and 9 females), ranging in age from 22 to 33 years (mean: 24.4) with no history of neurotological symptoms. Each testing session consisted of a pre-test, an adaptation period, and a post-test...

Vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) are short latency manifestations of vestibulo-ocular and vestibulocollic reflexes that originate from the utricle and saccule. Although cervical and ocular VEMPs have mostly been applied to peripheral vestibular disorders, the characteristics and the diagnostic values of VEMPs have been expanded to assess the function of the central otolithic pathways. In the central nervous system, the cervical VEMPs (cVEMPs) are mediated by the vestibular nuclei and uncrossed medial vestibulospinal tract descending in the lower brainstem and spinal cord...

In most patients with vertigo, the first and clinically most important question posed to neurologists is whether it is a central or a peripheral syndrome. In more than 90 % of cases, this differentiation is made possible by systematically recording the patient history (asking about the type of vertigo, the duration, triggers and accompanying symptoms) and conducting a physical examination. Particularly in the case of acute vertigo disorders, a five-step procedure has proven useful: 1. A cover test to look for vertical divergence (skew deviation) as a central sign and component of the ocular tilt reaction (OTR); 2...

The study addresses the question as to what extent the otolith-mediated gravity vector maintains the stability of the coordinate frames of the vestibulo-ocular reflex and the oculomotor system, described by Listing's Plane. Under normal 1 G conditions it has been demonstrated in the monkey that Listing's Plane (LP) and the 3D vestibulo-ocular response (3D-VOR) are close to collinear [10]. In the present study the coordinate frames of the oculomotor system and the three-dimensional vestibulo-ocular reflex (3D-VOR) system were measured under one-g gravity conditions and during a period of prolonged microgravity, on-board the International Space Station (ISS)...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: Bilateral vestibulopathy (BV) is a mostly persistent and disabling disorder causing dizziness, oscillopsia, and imbalance during locomotion. The animal model is a prerequisite for experimental investigation on prevention and treatment of this disorder. The aim of this study was to determine the vestibular dysfunction and histopathology in rabbits with gentamicin-induced BV. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective animal study in rabbits. METHODS: We performed intratympanic gentamicin (ITGM) injections in 12 Lionhead rabbits...

Isolated floccular infarction is extremely rare, and impairments of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) have not been explored in humans with isolated floccular lesions. The purpose of this study was to examine and report selective impairment of VOR in response to high acceleration using head impulse in a patient with isolated floccular infarction. The patient underwent bedside and laboratory evaluation of vestibular function, which included video-oculography, ocular torsion and the subjective visual vertical, cervical and ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials, bithermal caloric irrigation, rotatory chair test, and the head impulse test (HIT) using search coils...

The spectrum of diagnoses of patients with dizziness as the leading symptom who consult a neurologist does not differ greatly from the spectrum of those who consult ear nose and throat (ENT) specialists or general practitioners (GP). The most frequent forms are benign paroxysmal positioning vertigo (BPPV), phobic postural vertigo, central vertigo disorders, Menière's disease, vestibular neuritis and bilateral vestibulopathy. However, the first and most important question that is posed to neurologists is whether it is a central or peripheral syndrome...

BACKGROUND: Although adult vertebrates sense changes in head position by using two classes of accelerometer, at larval stages zebrafish lack functional semicircular canals and rely exclusively on their otolithic organs to transduce vestibular information. RESULTS: Despite this limitation, we find that larval zebrafish perform an effective vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) that serves to stabilize gaze in response to pitch and roll tilts. By using single-cell electroporations and targeted laser ablations, we identified a specific class of central vestibular neurons, located in the tangential nucleus, that are essential for the utricle-dependent VOR...

To investigate the characteristics of eye movements produced by electrical stimulation of semicircular canal afferents, we studied the spatial and temporal features of eye movements elicited by short-term lateral canal stimulation in two squirrel monkeys with plugged lateral canals, with the head upright or statically tilted in the roll plane. The electrically induced vestibuloocular reflex (eVOR) evoked with the head upright decayed more quickly than the stimulation signal provided by the electrode, demonstrating an absence of the classic velocity storage effect that improves the dynamics of the low-frequency VOR...

INTRODUCTION: Sensory conflicts in the vestibular system lead to motion sickness of which space motion sickness (SMS) is a special case. SMS affects up to 70% of the astronauts during the first 3 days in space. The search for effective countermeasures has led to several nonpharmacological and pharmacological approaches. The current study focuses on the effects of lorazepam (1 mg), meclizine (25 mg), promethazine (25 mg), and scopolamine (0.4 mg) on the vestibular system, with special focus on the canal and otolith functions separately...

PURPOSE: The lateral rectus (LR) and medial rectus (MR) extraocular muscles (EOMs) have largely nonoverlapping superior and inferior innervation territories, suggesting functional compartmental specialization. We used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in humans to investigate differential compartmental activity in the rectus EOMs during head tilt, which evokes ocular counter-rolling, a torsional vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). METHODS: MRI in quasi-coronal planes was analyzed during target-controlled central gaze in 90° right and left head tilts in 12 normal adults...

We are studying the effectiveness of a semicircular canal prosthesis to improve postural control, perception of spatial orientation, and the VOR in rhesus monkeys with bilateral vestibular hypofunction. Balance is examined by measuring spontaneous sway of the body during quiet stance and postural responses evoked by head turns and rotation of the support surface; perception is measured with a task derived from the subjective visual vertical (SVV) test during static and dynamic rotation in the roll plane; and the angular VOR is measured during rotation about the roll, pitch, and yaw axes...

PURPOSE: This article considers vertical misalignment and torsion of the eyes that arise from disorders of vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) pathways. RECENT FINDINGS: Infarction of the nodulus is one of the causes of skew deviation, a vertical strabismus accompanied by torsion of the eyes and tilt of the subjective visual vertical. Vertical components of childhood strabismus may arise from dysgenesis of vestibular projections in the brainstem. If vertical misalignment decreases greatly in the supine position compared to the erect poison one may conclude that skew deviation rather than a fourth nerve palsy is responsible for the strabismus...

BACKGROUND: Vestibular reflexes coordinate movements or sensory input with changes in body or head position. Vestibular-evoked responses that involve the extraocular muscles include the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), a compensatory eye movement to stabilize retinal images. Although an angular VOR attributable to semicircular canal stimulation was reported to be absent in free-swimming zebrafish larvae, recent studies reveal that vestibular-induced eye movements can be evoked in zebrafish larvae by both static tilts and dynamic rotations that tilt the head with respect to gravity...

The vestibular organs in the base of the skull provide important information about head orientation and motion in space. Previous studies have suggested that both angular velocity information from the semicircular canals and information about head orientation and translation from the otolith organs are centrally processed in an internal model of head motion, using the principles of optimal estimation. This concept has been successfully applied to model behavioral responses to classical vestibular motion paradigms...

Among other problems, patients with vestibular problems suffer imbalance, spatial disorientation, and blurred vision. These problems lead to varying degrees of disability and can be debilitating. Unfortunately, a large number of patients with vestibular complaints cannot be diagnosed with the clinical tests available today. Nor do we have treatments for all patients that we can diagnose. These clinical problems provide challenges to and opportunities for the field of vestibular research. In this paper, we discuss some new diagnostic and treatment options that could become available for tomorrow's patients...

The mechanisms of vestibular migraine and motion sickness remain unknown. The aims of this study were to determine interictal vestibular dysfunction in migraineurs according to associated dizziness/vertigo and motion sickness, and to find out whether impaired uvulonodular inhibition over the vestibular system underlies the vestibular symptoms and signs by measuring tilt suppression of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). One hundred and thirty-one patients with migraine [65 with vestibular migraine (MV), 41 with migrainous dizziness (MD), and 25 with migraine only (MO)] and 50 normal controls underwent evaluation of vestibular function...

We developed a modeling procedure using CT scans or MRI data for exploring the bony and lymphatic canals of vestibular patients. We submitted 445 patients with instability and spatial de-orientation to this procedure. Out of the 445 patients, 95 had scoliosis, some of them, because malformations were suspected also had CT-scan modeling and functional tests. We focused on a never described, abnormal connection between the lymphatic lateral and posterior canal (LPCC) with a frequency of 67/445 (15%). In the scoliosis subgroup, the frequency was 52/95 (55%)...

Mechanisms of head-shaking nystagmus (HSN) require further exploration in central vestibular disorders. To determine whether impaired uvulonodular inhibition over the velocity storage of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) is the mechanism of ipsilesional HSN in lateral medullary infarction (LMI), 17 patients with ipsilesional HSN and LMI underwent measurements of the VOR gains during low-frequency sinusoidal harmonic accelerations, and the time constants (TC) of the VOR and tilt suppression of the post-otatory nystagmus during step-velocity rotation...

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) was studied to examine the utility of off-vertical axis rotation (OVAR) in the diagnosis of acoustic neurinoma. Subjects were sinusoidally rotated with eyes open in complete darkness at frequencies of 0.4 and 0.8 Hz with a maximum angular velocity of 60 degrees /s at either earth-vertical axis rotation (EVAR) or OVAR. Thirteen patients with acoustic neurinomas were investigated. Results showed that VOR gain during OVAR at 0.8 Hz and in a 30 degrees nose-up position in patients with internal auditory canal tumors was significantly less than the gain measured during EVAR...