Purpose: Number magnitude is often represented spatially in the mind by a mental number line, on which small numbers are located to the left of space and large numbers to the right. As vestibular dysfunction can affect aspects of spatial cognition, we wondered whether patients with acute vestibular loss would show a directional bias along the mental number line.
Methods: We gave 18 patients with vestibular neuritis (VN) (eight left VN, ten right; mean age 54 years, range 31-75 years; four females) and 15 normal age- and education-matched controls (mean age 47 years, range 26-75 years; 11 females) a mental number bisection task.
Background: Vestibular migraine (VM) and Menière's disease (MD) are two common causes of recurrent spontaneous vertigo. Using history, video-nystagmography and audiovestibular tests, we developed machine learning models to separate these two disorders.
Methods: We recruited patients with VM or MD from a neurology outpatient facility.
Periodic alternating nystagmus (PAN) is a rare oscillatory ocular motor disorder. The effects of gravity on the dynamic behavior of PAN can be studied by monitoring the nystagmus while changing head orientation. Previous studies of patients with PAN reached different conclusions about the effect of changing the orientation of the head relative to gravity on the ongoing PAN, either no effect or a damping of the nystagmus within several minutes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Superficial siderosis, a progressive, debilitating, neurological disease, often presents with bilateral impairment of auditory and vestibular function. We highlight that superficial siderosis is often due to a repairable spinal dural defect of the type that can also cause spontaneous intracranial hypotension.
Methods: Retrospective chart review of five patients presenting with moderate to severe, progressive bilateral sensorineural hearing loss as well as vestibular loss.
Front Ophthalmol (Lausanne)
June 2022
Aim: To characterise the ophthalmic indications for, and ophthalmic efficacy of, transverse sinus stenting in adults with medically refractory idiopathic intracranial hypertension.
Methods: A retrospective cohort study was undertaken on a single-author database of 226 successive patients with confirmed idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH). A total of 32 patients were identified who received a transverse sinus stent for medically refractory disease.
Objective: To examine the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and compensatory-saccades before and after complete unilateral vestibular deafferentation (UVD).
Methods: Forty patients were studied before and after surgery for vestibular or facial schwannoma using the video head-impulse test (vHIT) and multivariable regression.
Results: Prior to UVD (median(IQR), 14(58.
Objective: Menière's disease (MD) is characterized by recurrent vertigo and fluctuating aural symptoms. Diagnosis is straightforward in typical presentations, but a proportion of patients present with atypical symptoms. Our aim is to profile the array of symptoms patients may initially present with and to analyze the vestibular and audiological test results of patients with a diagnosis of MD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Nitrous oxide misuse is a recognized issue worldwide. Prolonged misuse inactivates vitamin B12, causing a myeloneuropathy.
Methods: Twenty patients presenting between 2016 and 2020 to tertiary hospitals in Sydney with myeloneuropathy due to nitrous oxide misuse were reviewed.
Seventy Ménière's disease (MD) patients with spontaneous vertigo (100%), unilateral aural fullness (57.1%), tinnitus (78.6%), and subjective hearing loss (75.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Many patients attending the emergency room (ER) with vertigo, leave without a diagnosis. We assessed whether the three tools could improve ER diagnosis of vertigo.
Methods: A prospective observational study was undertaken on 539 patients presenting to ER with vertigo.
A woman, age 44, with a positive anti-YO paraneoplastic cerebellar syndrome and normal imaging developed an ocular motor disorder including periodic alternating nystagmus (PAN), gaze-evoked nystagmus (GEN) and rebound nystagmus (RN). During fixation there was typical PAN but changes in gaze position evoked complex, time-varying oscillations of GEN and RN. To unravel the pathophysiology of this unusual pattern of nystagmus, we developed a mathematical model of normal function of the circuits mediating the vestibular-ocular reflex and gaze-holding including their adaptive mechanisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: We characterise the history, vestibular tests, ictal and interictal nystagmus in vestibular migraine.
Method: We present our observations on 101 adult-patients presenting to an outpatient facility with recurrent spontaneous and/or positional vertigo whose final diagnosis was vestibular migraine (n = 27) or probable vestibular migraine (n = 74). Ictal and interictal video-oculography, caloric and video head impulse tests, vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials and audiometry were performed.
A sensitive test for Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence (SCD) is the air-conducted, ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential (AC oVEMP). However, not all patients with large AC oVEMPs have SCD. This retrospective study sought to identify alternate diagnoses also producing enlarged AC oVEMPs and investigated bone-conducted (BC) oVEMP outcome measures that would help differentiate between these, and cases of SCD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA fundamental characteristic of peripheral vestibular nystagmus, in particular horizontal nystagmus, is that it is suppressed by visual fixation. This means that a patient with a vertigo attack of peripheral vestibular origin might have no obvious spontaneous nystagmus on clinical examination. Goggles that reduce or remove visual fixation allow the cliniican to observe nystagmus in this situation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA 63-year-old man presented with imbalance when coughing due to a respiratory tract infection. He had a history of multiple myeloma with a plasmacytoma of the left temporal bone. Examination revealed a positive leftward head impulse test, no spontaneous nystagmus, left-beating positional nystagmus, and left-beating Valsalva-induced nystagmus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We characterised the clinical and neuro-otological characteristics of patients with Susac syndrome.
Methods: The medical records of 30 patients with Susac syndrome were reviewed for details of their clinical presentation and course, neuro-otological symptoms, investigation results including audiology and vestibular function tests, treatment and outcomes.
Results: Our findings demonstrate that 29 of our 30 patients with Susac syndrome developed neuro-otological symptoms such as hearing loss, disequilibrium, tinnitus or vertigo during their disease course.
Acta Otolaryngol
October 2020
The subjective visual horizontal (SVH) is a test of utricular function that assesses conjugate ocular torsion which is a component of the ocular tilt reaction (OTR). In unilateral destructive peripheral vestibular lesions, the OTR and so the SVH tilt is usually ipsiversive. Our study aimed to profile the causes of a contraversive SVH tilt in patients with a confirmed unilateral peripheral vestibular deficit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe normal vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) generates almost perfectly compensatory smooth eye movements during a 'head-impulse' rotation. An imperfect VOR gain provokes additional compensatory saccades to re-acquire an earth-fixed target. In the present study, we investigated vestibular and visual contributions on saccade production.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF