Background: Gait imbalance and oscillopsia are frequent complaints of bilateral vestibular loss (BLV). Video-head-impulse testing (vHIT) of all six semicircular canals (SCCs) has demonstrated varying involvement of the different canals. Sparing of anterior-canal function has been linked to aminoglycoside-related vestibulopathy and Menière’s disease. We hypothesized that utricular and saccular i...

We investigated if visual direction-selective neurons in the pretectal area (APT) of goldfish (Carassius auratus auratus) preferred visual stimuli resulting from rotations around axes corresponding to the best responsive axes of the semicircular canals [optic flow that is consistent to a maximal activation of the horizontal canal pair (yaw), to a maximal activation of the right anterior/left po...

The efficacy of the technique of semicircular canal plugging in selectively blocking the function of individual semicircular canals was evaluated in rabbits. The horizontal and vertical vestibuloocular reflexes (HVOR, VVOR) and the horizontal optokinetic reflex (HOKR) were measured before the horizontal or anterior semicircular canals (HSCs, ASCs) were plugged bilaterally with small spindles of...

Balance disorders are common issues for aging populations due to the effects of normal aging on peripheral vestibular structures. These changes affect the results of vestibular function evaluations and make the interpretation of these results more difficult. The objective of this article is to review the current state of knowledge of clinically relevant vestibular measures. We will first focus ...

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) is a condition that indicates a benign inner ear disorder. It is generally believed that BPPV is due to the dislodged otoconial particles from otolith organs and unusual collection of them within any of semicircular canals or even in all three semicircular canals. Although the typical features of nystagmus in BPPV have been well-studied, very few stud...

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo of the horizontal semicircular canal (HC-BPPV) is a well-defined syndrome characterized by direction-changing horizontal positional nystagmus. We report the clinical features of 5 patients who illustrate the possible variables of the syndrome. In most cases, nystagmus is geotropic and more intense when the pathological ear is lowermost; less often the syndro...

The bony labyrinth obtained at necropsy in four cases was studied by a new computer-generated three-dimensional (3-D) system. One case was normal (control) and the other three were histopathologically confirmed cases of Mondini's dysplasia. In case 1, the cochlea had only 2 turns and the lateral semicircular canal did not make a circle but appeared as a spherical mass projecting from the utricl...

This article discusses the problem of estimating the orientation of inclined ground on which a human subject stands based on information provided by the vestibular system consisting of the otolith and semicircular canals. It is assumed that body segments are not necessarily aligned and thus forming an open kinematic chain. The semicircular canals analogues to a technical gyrometer provide a mea...

The ability to orient and navigate through the terrestrial environment represents a computational challenge common to all vertebrates. It arises because motion sensors in the inner ear, the otolith organs, and the semicircular canals transduce self-motion in an egocentric reference frame. As a result, vestibular afferent information reaching the brain is inappropriate for coding our own motion ...