A Signal Analysis Technique of Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex Stimulated with Impulsive Head Movements

Abstract

Eye movements have been investigated in several areas of medicine and also elsewhere, such as in psychology or even in the development of human-computer interfaces. In the last few years we have designed a technique to stimulate, measure and analyze vestibulo-ocular reflex eye movements. In the otoneurological literature these are seen as a novel and promising means of revealing certain disorders and diseases associated with vertigo. Vestibulo-ocular reflex is stimulated by impulsive head movements. We developed the present pattern recognition technique to detect the stimulus (impulsive head movements) and the vestibulo-ocular reflex (response eye movements) generated from signals and to compute the latency and the gain values between them. Using our technique to calculate these attributes, we obtained clearly different results for a group of 22 dizzy patients than for a group of 30 healthy subjects.

Automatic classification and robust identification of vestibulo-ocular reflex responses: from theory to practice

“…However, they have not yet come up with an appropriate algorithm for the VOR, possibly due to the short length of data segments. Since no easy-to-use tool has been provided to researchers and clinicians to handle the complexities of this system, experts continue to use the existing over-simplifying methods (Tangorra et al 2004;Peterka 2005;Juhola et al 2006;Wuyts et al 2007). …”

“…While VOR trajectories contain segments of fast and slow eye velocity (Galiana 1991;Rey and Galiana 1993), most studies disregard the fast phases and link slow phase segments to estimate VOR dynamics. Assuming correct pre-classification of nystagmus segments, clinical analysis of the VOR is limited to calculating the gain, time constant, and asymmetry of the envelope of the slow-phase response during step or harmonic rotations (Juhola et al 2006;Wuyts et al 2007). This "envelope" approach results in the loss or misinterpretation of information, especially since the fast phases of nystagmus can also carry clinically relevant information (Burov et al 1993).…”