Vestibular Evoked Responses in Man: Methodological Aspects

Abstract

We have developed a stimulation method where the subject is sitting and the head is rotated with shock bursts elicited by a shaker with a repetition rate of 2 Hz. The head movement is monitored with an accelerometer mounted on the cheek by a head band. The maximum amplitude of the head movement is 3″. The electrodes were places on vertex with a negative electrode on the mastoid. During stimulation, 90 dB white noise was applied to the ears to mask the noise generated by the stimulus. We recorded following responses: i) VER from ipsilateral ear, ii) VER from contralateral ear, iii) eye movement with EOG, and iv) movement of the head. Amplification and averaging of the signal were made with an evoked response recorder (Nihon Kohden, Neuropac four). From 200 to 2,000 averaged responses were collected and stored for further analysis on a floppy disc. During second stage filtering the data were fed into a microcomputer where appropriate programs were used to eliminate the EMG and movement artifacts.

Key Words:

• electromagnetic shaker
• acceleration
• oscillopsia
• vestibular evoked response