BACKGROUND Superficial siderosis (SS) is caused by repeated or continuous bleeding into the subarachnoid space that results in iron from hemoglobin (hemosiderin) being deposited on the surface of the brain. Clinically, the condition is characterized by sensorineural deafness, ataxia, and pyramidal signs. However the mechanism of peripheral vestibular disturbance was not revealed. We show the ve...

Hearing and bodily balance are different sensations initiated by a common mechanism. Both sound- and head movement-dependent mechanical displacement are converted into electrical signals by the sensory hair cells. The saccule and utricle inner ear organs, in combination with their central projections to the hindbrain, are considered essential in fish for separating auditory and vestibular stimu...

The vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) has become a useful tool to assess the saccule and inferior vestibular nerve function. Vestibulopathies involving the saccule or inferior vestibular nerve typically result in VEMP responses that are diminished or absent on the involved side. Abnormally large VEMPs are rare. Large VEMPs have been associated with superior canal dehiscence, Ménière's...

Qualitative and quantitative observations were made of the density and growth of the sensory epithelia, hair cell number, and otoliths of the 3 pairs of end organs (saccule, lagena, and utricle) of the inner ear of European hake Merluccius merluccius (35 to 100 mm length) caught in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea. This is the period in the hake’s life-history during which the transition from...

An apparent illegal introduction of Lepomis macrochirus macrochirus from Yokohama City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, is reported based on a juvenile specimen and a photograph of two adults collected on 14 June 2015 and deposited in the Kangawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History. The specimens and photographs were initially reported on the internet-based social networking site, Twitter. Two sp...

Successful predator evasion is essential to the fitness of many animals. Variation in escape behaviour may be adaptive as it reduces predictability, enhancing escape success. High escape velocities and accelerations also increase escape success, but biomechanical factors likely constrain the behavioural range over which performance can be maximized. There may therefore be a trade-off between va...

The Nobel Prize winner Robert Bárány described benign positional vertigo and related it to the otoliths in 1921. Dix and Hallpike further elucidated this clinically distinctive, common disorder in 1952. The displacement of otoliths from the utricle or saccule into one of the semicircular canals later proved to be the underlying mechanism, described by Schuknecht and utilised therapeutically by ...