Effect of blindfolding one eye on vestibular compensation in guinea pigs

It is known that visual input plays an important part in vestibular compensation. Recent physiological evidence has shown that there are some differences regarding functional contributions to the vestibular nuclei between the right and left eye. The present experiment was undertaken to elucidate the influence of blindfolding one eye on vestibular compensation. Guinea pigs were distributed into three groups: control group, left eye surgically closed, and right eye surgically closed. Chemical labyrinthectomy was performed by injecting chloroform into the left middle ear under light ether anesthesia. Nystagmus beats and head deviations were analysed to assess the process of compensation. Results have shown that the elimination of visual input from one eye ipsilateral to the lesion side could significantly retard the compensation, whereas no significant difference was found between the control eye and the right eye surgically closed group. It is believed that the present result could be due to direction selectivity of visual input in those subjects. The neural mechanism responsible for this result is discussed.