BACKGROUND Do central mechanisms account for the variability of clinical recovery following peripheral vestibulo-cochlear lesions? OBJECTIVE To investigate structural (morphological) plasticity in the human brain following unilateral vestibulo-cochlear lesions which might contribute to central vestibular compensation. METHODS The authors compared regional grey matter volume (GMV) changes in...

Cerebellar long-term depression (LTD) is a model system for neuronal information storage that has an absolute requirement for activation of protein kinase C (PKC). It has been claimed to underlie several forms of cerebellar motor learning. Previous studies using various knockout mice (mGluR1, GluRdelta2, glial fibrillary acidic protein) have supported this claim; however, this work has suffered...

Clinical observations have long indicated a vestibular influence on autonomic function. Neuroanatomical studies in the rabbit and in the cat have identified descending vestibulo-autonomic pathways from the caudal portion of the medial vestibular nucleus and the inferior vestibular nucleus to the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve, the nucleus of the solitary tract, and some brain stem medu...

both the peripheral vestibular system, that is, the labyrinth, and the central vestibular system, is known to influence autonomic function in several ways that have clinical implications. This paper discusses evidence for vestibular influences on autonomic control from normal human subjects, evidence for vestibular influences on autonomic control from patients, clinical implications of vestibul...

OBJECTIVE To identify the presence of vestibulo-ocular arreflexia in patients with Machado-Joseph disease (MJD), which can easily be diagnosed at the bedside. METHODS Seven patients with MJD from five unrelated families and 11 patients with sporadic or hereditary cerebellar ataxia other than MJD underwent a detailed neuro-otological and oculomotor examination. Six MJD and five non-MJD patient...

The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) stabilizes images on the retina during rapid head motions. The gain of the VOR, i.e. the ratio of eye to head rotation velocity, measured with the eyes focused at a distance is typically around -1. However, to stabilize images accurately, the vestibulo-ocular reflex response must be modulated by the context in which the response takes place. The context studied...

Healthy subjects (N = 10) were exposed to 10-min cumulative pseudorandom bilateral bipolar Galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) on a weekly basis for 12 weeks (120 min total exposure). During each trial subjects performed computerized dynamic posturography and eye movements were measured using digital video-oculography. Follow up tests were conducted 6 weeks and 6 months after the 12-week adap...