Characterization of age-related changes in sacculocolic response parameters assessed by cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials

Abstract

Age-related changes have been documented in anatomical studies on peripheral as well as central vestibular systems. Similar changes have also been observed for saccular responses evaluated through Cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP) after the age of 60 years. Nevertheless, most of these studies have either made use of small sample sizes, considered inappropriate for normative studies of such kind, or incorporated wider age groups which might have confounded the conclusions. In order to overcome the above shortcomings, the present study aimed at evaluating the effect of age on cVEMP using larger sample size and distributing the participants to smaller age group divisions. A cross-sectional design was employed to record cVEMPs from 280 healthy volunteers in the age range of 10-85 years who were distributed to seven age groups (10-20, 20-30, 30-40, 40-50, 50-60, 60-70 and above 70 years). The latency, amplitude, inter-aural asymmetry ratio, and threshold were compared using one-way analysis of variance, whereas the response rate was calculated in terms of percentage of ears in which the responses were identifiable. The results revealed a steady decline in response rate and amplitude with advancing age beyond 5th decade (50-60 years). In addition, the latency of P13 and N23 was prolonged, while the thresholds worsened with increasing age also after 50 years. Hence, age-matched norms have to be considered while interpreting the results of cVEMP, especially in individuals above 50 years of age.

Downbeat nystagmus: evidence for enhancement of utriculo-ocular pathways by ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials?

“…Second, the sensitivity of oVEMP and cVEMP measurements might not be comparable, since oVEMP act in an excitatory fashion, while cVEMP are inhibitory in nature. In addition, the vestibulocollic reflex could be weakened in our elderly study group, since the cVEMP strongly depend on muscle tone, which decreases with age [24,25]. In contrast to air-conducted cVEMP, the bone-conducted oVEMP elicited by tap stimuli to the forehead do not significantly decrease with age [26,27].…”

Assessment of otolith function using cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials in individuals with motion sickness

“…The electrode placement site was maintained as per our previous studies on cVEMP (Singh et al 2013a(Singh et al , 2013bSingh, Kadisonga, and Ergonomics 1909 Ashitha 2014). The gold-plated cup-shaped electrodes were placed at forehead (ground electrode), two-thirds the way up the ipsilateral sternocleidomastoid muscle (non-inverting electrode) and sternoclavicular junction (inverting electrode) after scrubbing the skin surface with an abrasive gel in order to obtain absolute and inter-electrode impedance of 2 kV and 5 kV, respectively.…”

Epidemiology of vestibular evoked myogenic potentials: Data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging

“…Cervical VEMPs (cVEMPs) in response to air-conducted sound have been shown to reflect the integrity of the saccule and inferior vestibular nerve, while ocular VEMPs (oVEMPs) in response to midline tap vibration have been shown to reflect the integrity of the utricle and superior vestibular nerve (Rosengren et al, 2011, Kantner et al, 2012). Several studies have provided normative data for VEMPs elicited by various air-conducted and midline tap stimuli (Welgampola et al, 2001, Basta et al, 2005, Brantberg et al, 2007, Singh et al), and have begun to characterize age-related changes in VEMP parameters and tuning properties (Piker et al, Welgampola et al, 2001, Zapala et al, 2004, Brantberg et al, 2007, Janky et al, 2009, Rosengren et al, 2011, Kantner et al, 2012, Taylor et al, 2012, Singh et al, 2013). Although age has been shown to have a significant impact on VEMP responses, the effect of other demographic characteristics and cardiovascular risk factors has not been established.…”