Electrode montage and gaze effects on ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs)

To investigate the properties of lateral electrode locations compared to the conventional ones and to bipolar compared to chin-referenced montages for recording ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs).

A total of 18 subjects were studied using 5 electrode locations around the eye, including the conventional location and more lateral ones (i.e. M, ML and L electrodes near the orbital margin, R1 and R2 electrodes below the two more medial ones). Unilateral air-conducted (AC) sound, bone-conducted (BC) impulses at the mastoid and BC vibration (500Hz) at the forehead were used. These were applied while the subjects looked in neutral gaze and with 4 levels of increasing elevation. A subset of 10 subjects were also studied when looking downwards at 4 levels. Five bipolar montages were created offline by subtraction.

The M and ML electrodes had the largest responses but responses were seen for all 5 electrodes. The chin reference was associated with substantial pickup from the contralateral side (as judged using unilateral AC stimulation). The M-R1 (conventional) montage showed a significantly non-linear response to gaze angle, unlike the ML montages. The ML-R1 montage gave the largest responses. There was a clear change in latency for the conventional montage with downgaze for the AC and BC impulsive stimuli.

The ML active electrode has a more stable n1 latency, a larger and a more linear response to gaze angle than the conventional recording site, probably due to contamination by pickup of inferior rectus activity when using the conventional site.

The ML location is a better site for the active pickup for recording oVEMPs if the main object of study is the inferior oblique muscle and particularly if subjects have difficulty with upgaze.