Palinopsia Following Acute Unilateral Partial Vestibular Deafferentation: A Case Report

Palinopsia is defined as the persistence or reappearance of images after cessation of the visual stimulus. One patient presented episodes of palinopsia after the functional loss of the 3 semicircular canals of the right ear while the otolithic function was preserved. None of classical causes was identified in this patient, intoxications, brain tumors, migraines, psychiatric disorders, etc. For a movement to be perceived as a single event, central processes of temporal integration are necessary to correct the shift between the rapid vestibular information, and the slow visual information. However, it has been shown on animal models that vestibular inputs are slower than normal in case of peripheral deafferentation limited to the canalar function with preservation of the otolithic function, which is the case in this patient. Therefore, we hypothesize that episodes of palinopsia he presents result from the fact that temporal integration processes do not take into account the slower than normal vestibular information due to the peripheral disorder and continue to slow it down. Thus, the patient keeps the visual image in memory until the late arrival of the vestibular information.