Introduction: In migraine, there is no anatomical correlate of vertigo and no structural abnormality is evident in conventional imaging. Cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP) is an uncrossed inhibitory vestibulo-spinal reflex (VSR), while ocular VEMP (oVEMP) represents a crossed excitatory vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR).Objective: This study aims at functional evaluation of the findings of cVEMP and oVEMP in migraine patients.
Material and methods:This was a cross-sectional case-control study that included 20 migraine patients as the case group and 30 healthy adult subjects as a control group. All participants were subjected to history taking, otological examination, basic audiological evaluation, bedside examination of the dizzy patient, cVEMP, oVEMP, and posturography tests.Results: 35% of migraine patients showed delayed cVEMP latency and 40% showed abnormal oVEMP in the form of statistically significant delayed right oVEMP P1 (p = 0.050) and left oVEMP N1 latency (p = 0.038) compared with controls. cVEMP parameters were not correlated to posturography results. The majority of migraine patients (70%) had normal equilibrium pattern and normal sensory analyses ratios (65%). Only 30% had vestibular dysfunction.Conclusions: VSR and VOR are affected in migraine patients. We recommend the use of cVEMP and oVEMP in migraine patients for functional assessment of brainstem pathways.