[Function returning without and with recovery nystagmus after sudden unilateral isolated vestibular loss (author's...

The restoration of peripher labyrinthine excitability after sudden unilateral isolated vestibular loss shows a different behaviour: It can happen with or without recovery nystagmus with a numerical nearly equal frequency. In a follow-up of 44 patients with unilateral vestibular loss of vascular genetics the objective and subjective characteristics of both states are described. In explanation of it a lesion of variable etiology in the region of the vestibular artery and a supposition of a not yet or already occured compensation of the disturbed tonus balance in the nuclear area are not sufficient. Rather the origin of the different clinical states of recovery phenomenon must be presumed in all probability as the result of a primary and secondary retrograde degeneration of the vestibular neurons. Thereby the distance of the lesion from the Scarpa ganglion is presumably of decisive importance.