Version 1
: Received: 17 January 2022 / Approved: 21 January 2022 / Online: 21 January 2022 (10:43:36 CET)
How to cite:
Curthoys, I.; Smith, P.; Ramos de Migueal, A. Why Should Constant Stimulation Of Saccular Afferents Modify The Posture And Gait Of Patients With Bilateral Vestibular Dysfunction? A Review. Preprints2022, 2022010318. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202201.0318.v1
Curthoys, I.; Smith, P.; Ramos de Migueal, A. Why Should Constant Stimulation Of Saccular Afferents Modify The Posture And Gait Of Patients With Bilateral Vestibular Dysfunction? A Review. Preprints 2022, 2022010318. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202201.0318.v1
Curthoys, I.; Smith, P.; Ramos de Migueal, A. Why Should Constant Stimulation Of Saccular Afferents Modify The Posture And Gait Of Patients With Bilateral Vestibular Dysfunction? A Review. Preprints2022, 2022010318. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202201.0318.v1
APA Style
Curthoys, I., Smith, P., & Ramos de Migueal, A. (2022). Why Should Constant Stimulation Of Saccular Afferents Modify The Posture And Gait Of Patients With Bilateral Vestibular Dysfunction? A Review. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202201.0318.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Curthoys, I., Paul Smith and Angel Ramos de Migueal. 2022 "Why Should Constant Stimulation Of Saccular Afferents Modify The Posture And Gait Of Patients With Bilateral Vestibular Dysfunction? A Review" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202201.0318.v1
Abstract
An ongoing EU Horizon 2020 Project called BionicVEST is investigating the effect of constant electrical stimulation (ES) of the inferior vestibular nerve in patients with bilateral vestibular dysfunction (BVD)[1]. The evidence is that constant ES results in improved postural stability and gait performance and so the question of central importance is how could constant ES of mainly saccular afferents in these BVD patients cause this improved performance? We suggest that the constant ES is substituting for the absent saccular neural input to the vestibular nuclei and the cerebellum in these BVD patients and indirectly via these structures to other structures which have been of great recent interest in motor control. One target area, the anterior midline cerebellum (the uvula) has recently been targeted as a location for deep brain stimulation in human patients to improve postural stability and gait. There are projections from midline cerebellum to basal ganglia including the striatum, structures involved in the initiation of gait. It may be that the effect of this activation of peripheral saccular afferent neurons is analogous to the effect of deep brain stimulation (DBS) by electrodes in basal ganglia acting to help alleviate the symptoms of patients with Parkinson's disease.
Medicine and Pharmacology, Neuroscience and Neurology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
