Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/60627
Title: A case series shows independent vestibular labyrinthine function after major surgical trauma to the human cochlea
Author(s): Plontke, Stefan K.-R.Look up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Rahne, TorstenLook up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Curthoys, Ian S.
Håkansson, Bo
Fröhlich, LauraLook up in the Integrated Authority File of the German National Library
Issue Date: 2021
Type: Article
Language: English
Abstract: Background: The receptors for hearing and balance are housed together in the labyrinth of the inner ear and share the same fluids. Surgical damage to either receptor system was widely believed to cause certain permanent loss of the receptor function of the other. That principle, however, has been called into question because there have been anecdotal reports in individual patients of at least partial preservation of cochlear function after major surgical damage to the vestibular division and vice versa. Methods: We performed specific objective vestibular function tests before and after surgical trauma (partial or subtotal cochlear removal) for treatment of intracochlear tumors in 27 consecutive patients in a tertiary referral center. Vestibular function was assessed by calorics (low-frequency response of the lateral semicircular canal), vestibulo-ocular reflex by video head impulse test (vHIT) of the three semicircular canals, cervical and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP, saccule and oVEMP, utricle). Preoperative and postoperative distributions were compared with paired t-tests. Results: Here we show that there was no significant difference between pre- and post-operative measures for all tests of the five vestibular organs, and that after major surgical cochlear trauma, the vestibular receptors continue to function independently. Conclusions: These surprising observations have important implications for our understanding of the function and the surgery of the peripheral auditory and vestibular system in general and open up new possibilities for the development, construction and evaluation of neural interfaces for electrical or optical stimulation of the peripheral auditory and vestibular nervous system.
URI: https://opendata.uni-halle.de//handle/1981185920/62578
http://dx.doi.org/10.25673/60627
Open Access: Open access publication
License: (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0(CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Sponsor/Funder: Publikationsfonds MLU
Journal Title: Communications medicine
Publisher: Springer Nature
Publisher Place: [London]
Volume: 1
Original Publication: 10.1038/s43856-021-00036-w
Appears in Collections:Open Access Publikationen der MLU

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
s43856-021-00036-w.pdf687.88 kBAdobe PDFThumbnail
View/Open