[Establishment and clinical significance of vestibular-evoked myogenic potential detection method]

Objective: To study the integrity of vestibular brain stem pathway and explore the diagnostic and clinical value of vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) in central nervous system diseases through the establishment of detection method of VEMPs. Method: Seventy-two normal volunteers (included between April 2016 and July 2017) were divided into 6 groups according to different ages.All subjects were tested with short acoustic stimulation.The superior oblique, masseter and sternocleidomastoid muscles were recorded respectively, and the stable waveform was obtained: (1)the Opposite ocular potential (o- VEMP) N1 and P1; (2)the bilateral masseter potential (m-VEMP) P11; (3)the same side neck potential (c-VEMP) P13 and N23.The three detection methods were used to measure the latency period, the amplitude of the peak value, the ratio of the amplitude before and after the stimulus, and the logarithm value of the ratio. Results: The mean values of latency period of N1, P11 and P13 were 10.9-12.0 ms, 11.3-13.6 ms, 13.2-14.6 ms, among which the occurrence rates of o-vemp, m-vemp and c-vemp were respectively 97.2%, 98.5% and 95.4%.With the increase of age, the latency period of each wave was observed to be prolonged, with significant difference (P<0.05), while no significant difference in the gender and side of each wave (P> 0.05). Conclusions: VEMPs are noninvasive measurement technology, stable and reliable, and can objectively evaluate the integrity of the vestibular brainstem pathway from three segment. This technology has broad application prospects in the central nervous system diseases, especially in neurodegenerative disease.