Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials in response to air-conducted 500 Hz short tones: Effect of stimulation procedure (monaural or binaural), age and gender.

Background: The ocular vestibular myogenic potentials (oVEMP) can be elicited by monaural air-conducted sound stimulation, and are usually recorded from the contralateral eye. In clinical setting a binaural stimulation would save time and require less effort from the subjects.

Objective: We evaluated the differences between monaural and binaural stimulation, and the possible effect of age and gender on oVEMP parameters.

The N3 potential compared to sound and galvanic vestibular evoked myogenic potential in healthy subjects and in multiple sclerosis patients.

Both sound (s-) and galvanic (g-) vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) enable us to study the saccular pathways. However, the VEMP can be abnormal for non-vestibular factors, such as insufficient activation of the sterno-cleido-mastoid (SCM) muscle or a lesion that involves the accessory nucleus and/or nerve or the SCM muscle. These drawbacks do not affect another technique that evaluates the saccular function: the N3 potential.