INTRODUCTION Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is the most frequently peripheral vestibular disorder, especially in older patients suffering from vertigo [1]. The brief vertigo attacks and imbalance symptomatic of BPPV are caused by otoconia freely floating within the semicircular canals [2]. Vertigo occurs after specific head movements and has the characteristics of nystagmus, includ...

Nystagmus needs to be stimulated for healthy subjects, but in patients it can also be spontaneous. By recording spontaneous nystagmus it is possible to reveal underlying disorders of the semicircular canals of the inner ear. We developed a signal analysis technique for this purpose and tested it with 28 otoneurological patients who had disorders in their semicircular canals. Our test results su...

The vestibular apparatus plays a fundamental role in equilibrioception. It is located in the inner ear and it substantially comprises otoliths, which indicate linear acceleration, and semicircular canals, which detect rotational acceleration. In this paper models of different complexity of the semicircular canals are reported and discussed: a monocanal hydro-elastic model and a three-canals mod...

UNLABELLED Knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the semicircular canals and their central pathways is essential for the diagnosis of vestibular pathology. This 3 dimensional (3D) scheme of the Semicircular Canals (SSCC) is a teaching tool and a useful reference guide for rapid consultation. MATERIAL AND METHODS A multicolored cardboard model is accompanied by a user manual which provide...

Selective semicircular canal inactivation and three-dimensional eye movement recordings have been used to investigate the spatial organization of vestibular signals in the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) of rhesus monkeys. In animals with one pair of semicircular canals inactivated, afferent activity no longer codes all spatial components of head angular velocity. if it were the activation patter...

Alignment of the body to the gravitational vertical is considered to be the key to human bipedalism. However, changes to the semicircular canals during human evolution suggest that the sense of head rotation that they provide is important for modern human bipedal locomotion. When walking, the canals signal a mix of head rotations associated with path turns, balance perturbations, and other body...

OBJECTIVE Assessment of a cartilage cap occlusion of dehiscent superior semicircular canals via a transmastoid and tegmen mini-craniotomy approach surgical technique. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective case review. SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS Thirty-seven patients over a 2 year time period underwent cartilage cap occlusion of a dehiscent superior semicircular canal. INTERVENTION ...

OBJECTIVE To characterize semicircular canal function before and after surgery for superior semicircular canal dehiscence (SCD) syndrome. STUDY DESIGN Prospective unblinded study of physiologic effect of intervention. SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS Patients with SCD syndrome documented by history, sound- or pressure-evoked eye movements, vestibular-evoked myogenic potential te...

BACKGROUND Spontaneous nystagmus caused by dorsolateral medullary infarction may be of vestibular origin. OBJECTIVES To test if imbalance of the central pathways of the semicircular canals contributes to spontaneous nystagmus in dorsolateral medullary syndrome. METHODS We examined four patients with dorsolateral medullary syndrome and recorded spontaneous nystagmus binocularly at gaze strai...

background and aim: the video head-impulse test (vhit) measures the vestibulo-ocular reflex (vor) driven by each semicircular canal, follo­wing high-acceleration head rotations. the main measurable response is the ratio of eye mov­ement velocity to the angular head velocity, which reflects canal function. although norma­tive data is available for vor gain, most studies only report horizontal vo...