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Vestibular and Ocular Motor Properties in Lateral Medullary Stroke Critically Depend on the Level of the Medullary Lesion.

ABSTRACT: Background: Lateral medullary stroke (LMS) results in a characteristic pattern of brainstem signs including ocular motor and vestibular deficits. Thus, an impaired angular vestibulo-ocular reflex (aVOR) may be found if the vestibular nuclei are affected. Objective: We aimed to characterize the frequency and pattern of vestibular and ocular-motor deficits in patients with LMS. Methods: Patients with MR-confirmed acute/subacute unilateral LMS from a stroke registry were included and a bedside neuro-otological examination was performed. Video-oculography and video-based head-impulse testing (vHIT) was obtained and semicircular canal function was determined. The lesion location/extension as seen on MRI was rated and involvement of the vestibular nuclei was judged. Results: Seventeen patients with LMS (age = 59.4 ± 14.3 years) were included. All patients had positive H.I.N.T.S. vHIT showed mild-to-moderate aVOR impairments in three patients (ipsilesional = 1; ipsilesional and contralesional = 1; contralesional = 1). Spontaneous nystagmus (n = 10/15 patients) was more often beating contralesionally than ipsilesionally (6 vs. 3) and was accompanied by upbeat nystagmus in four patients. Head-shaking nystagmus was noted in seven subjects, ipsilesionally beating in six and down-beating in one. On brain MRI, damage of the most caudal parts of the medial and/or inferior vestibular nucleus was noted in 13 patients. Only those two patients with lesions affecting the rostral medulla oblongata demonstrated an ipsilaterally impaired aVOR. Conclusions: While subtle ocular motor signs pointed to damage of the central-vestibular pathways in all 17 patients, aVOR deficits were infrequent, restricted to those patients with rostral medullary lesions and, if present, mild to moderate only. This can be explained by lesions located too far caudally and too far ventrally to substantially affect the vestibular nuclei.

SUBMITTER: Lee SH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7325917 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Vestibular and Ocular Motor Properties in Lateral Medullary Stroke Critically Depend on the Level of the Medullary Lesion.

Lee Seung-Han SH Kim Jae-Myung JM Schuknecht Bernhard B Tarnutzer Alexander Andrea AA

Frontiers in neurology 20200605

Background: Lateral medullary stroke (LMS) results in a characteristic pattern of brainstem signs including ocular motor and vestibular deficits. Thus, an impaired angular vestibulo-ocular reflex (aVOR) may be found if the vestibular nuclei are affected. Objective: We aimed to characterize the frequency and pattern of vestibular and ocular-motor deficits in patients with LMS. Methods: Patients with MR-confirmed acute/subacute unilateral LMS from a stroke registry were includ ...[more]

PMID: 32655466

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Project description:Background: Diagnosing stroke as a cause of acute vertigo, dizziness, or double vision remains a challenge, because symptom characteristics can be variable. The purpose of this study was to prospectively investigate lesion-symptom relationships in patients with acute vestibular or ocular motor stroke. Methods: Three hundred and fifty one patients with acute and isolated vestibular or ocular motor symptoms of unclear etiology were enrolled in the EMVERT lesion trial. Symptom quality was assessed by the chief complaint (vertigo, dizziness, double vision), symptom intensity by the visual analog scale, functional impairment by EQ-5D-5L, and symptom duration by daily rating. Acute vestibular and ocular motor signs were registered by videooculography. A standardized MRI (DWI-/FLAIR-/T2-/T2*-/3D-T1-weighted sequences) was recorded within 7 days of symptom onset. MRIs with DWI lesions were further processed for voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM). Results: In 47 patients, MRI depicted an acute unilateral stroke (13.4%). The chief complaints were dizziness (42.5%), vertigo (40.4%) and double vision (17.0%). Lesions in patients with vertigo or dizziness showed a large overlap in the cerebellar hemisphere. VLSM indicated that strokes in the medial cerebellar layers 7b, 8, 9 were associated with vertigo, strokes in the lateral cerebellar layer 8, crus 1, 2 with dizziness, and pontomesencephalic strokes with double vision. Symptom intensity and duration varied largely between patients. Higher symptom intensity and longer duration were associated with medial cerebellar lesions. Hemispheric lesions of the cortex were rare and presented with milder symptoms of shorter duration. Conclusions: Prospective evaluation of patients with acute vestibular or ocular motor stroke revealed that symptom quality, intensity and duration were not suited to differentiating peripheral from central etiologies. Lesions in the lateral cerebellum, thalamus, or cortex presented with unspecific, mild and transient symptoms prone to being misdiagnosed.

Project description:BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:The utility of prospective changes on the Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) assessment are unknown, and 2 methods of scoring are published in the literature. Total scores are the total symptom scores for each VOMS component, and change scores are the difference between the pretest total symptom score and component total symptom scores. This study documented prospective changes in vestibular and ocular motor impairments and symptoms in high school athletes with concussion using the total and change scoring methods and compared the percentage of scores over clinical cutoffs using the total and change scoring methods for the VOMS. METHODS:Sixty-three athletes (15.53 ± 1.06 years) completed the VOMS at baseline (ie, preinjury), 1 to 7 days, and 8 to 14 days after concussion. A series of repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance were conducted on total and change scores. A 2-way repeated-measures analysis of variance was performed on the near-point convergence distance. A series of ? analyses compared scores exceeding clinical cutoffs between the total and change scoring methods. RESULTS:Total scoring revealed impairments (Wilks ? = 0.39, F16,47 = 4.54, P < 0.001, ? = 0.61) on all VOMS components at 1 to 7 and 8 to 14 days compared to baseline. Change scoring revealed postinjury impairments compared with baseline (Wilks ? = 0.58, F14,49 = 2.52, P = 0.009, ? = 0.42) on all components at 1 to 7 days; however, impairments at 8 to 14 days were revealed only for the vertical vestibular oculomotor reflex and vestibular motor sensitivity components. Total scoring identified significantly more scores over cutoffs at 1 to 7 days (?1,63 = 5.97, P = 0.02) compared with change scores. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS:Both total and change scoring methods on the VOMS are useful for identifying impairments following concussion.Video Abstract available for more insights from the authors (see Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A230).

Project description:BackgroundTreatment of Chiari malformation can include suboccipital decompression with resection of one cerebellar tonsil. Its effects on ocular motor and cerebellar function have not yet been systematically examined.ObjectiveTo investigate whether decompression, including resection of one cerebellar tonsil, leads to ocular motor, vestibular, or cerebellar deficits.Patients and methodsTen patients with Chiari malformation type 1 were systematically examined before and after (1 week and 3 months) suboccipital decompression with unilateral tonsillectomy. The work-up included a neurological and neuro-ophthalmological examination, vestibular function, posturography, and subjective scales. Cerebellar function was evaluated by ataxia rating scales.ResultsDecompression led to a major subjective improvement 3 months after surgery, especially regarding headache (5/5 patients), hyp-/dysesthesia (5/5 patients), ataxia of the upper limbs (4/5 patients), and paresis of the triceps and interosseal muscles (2/2 patients). Ocular motor disturbances before decompression were detected in 50% of the patients. These symptoms improved after surgery, but five patients had new persisting mild ocular motor deficits 3 months after decompression with unilateral tonsillectomy (i.e., smooth pursuit deficits, horizontally gaze-evoked nystagmus, rebound, and downbeat nystagmus) without any subjective complaints. Impaired vestibular (horizontal canal, saccular, and utricular) function improved in five of seven patients with impaired function before surgery. Posturographic measurements after surgery did not change significantly.ConclusionDecompression, including resection of one cerebellar tonsil, leads to an effective relief of patients' preoperative complaints. It is a safe procedure when performed with the help of intraoperative electrophysiological monitoring, although mild ocular motor dysfunctions were seen in half of the patients, which were fortunately asymptomatic.

Project description:Following concussion, adolescents often experience vestibular and ocular motor symptoms as well as working memory deficits that may affect their cognitive, academic and social well-being. Complex visual environments including school activities, playing sports, or socializing with friends may be overwhelming for concussed adolescents suffering from headache, dizziness, nausea and fogginess, thus imposing heightened requirements on working memory to adequately function in such environments. While understanding the relationship between working memory and vestibular/ocular motor symptoms is critically important, no previous study has examined how an increase in working memory task difficulty affects the relationship between severity of vestibular/ocular motor symptoms and brain and behavioural responses in a working memory task. To address this question, we examined 80 adolescents (53 concussed, 27 non-concussed) using functional MRI while performing a 1-back (easy) and 2-back (difficult) working memory tasks with angry, happy, neutral and sad face distractors. Concussed adolescents completed the vestibular/ocular motor screening and were scanned within 10 days of injury. We found that all participants showed lower accuracy and slower reaction time on difficult (2-back) versus easy (1-back) tasks (P-values < 0.05). Concussed adolescents were significantly slower than controls across all conditions (P < 0.05). In concussed adolescents, higher vestibular/ocular motor screening total scores were associated with significantly greater differences in reaction time between 1-back and 2-back across all distractor conditions and significantly greater differences in retrosplenial cortex activation for the 1-back versus 2-back condition with neutral face distractors (P-values < 0.05). Our findings suggest that processing of emotionally ambiguous information (e.g. neutral faces) additionally increases the task difficulty for concussed adolescents. Post-concussion vestibular/ocular motor symptoms may reduce the ability to inhibit emotionally ambiguous information during working memory tasks, potentially affecting cognitive, academic and social functioning in concussed adolescents.

Project description:Vestibular and ocular motor impairments and symptoms have been documented in patients with sport-related concussions. However, there is no current brief clinical screen to assess and monitor these issues.To describe and provide initial data for the internal consistency and validity of a brief clinical screening tool for vestibular and ocular motor impairments and symptoms after sport-related concussions.Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 2.Sixty-four patients, aged 13.9 ± 2.5 years and seen approximately 5.5 ± 4.0 days after a sport-related concussion, and 78 controls were administered the Vestibular/Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) assessment, which included 5 domains: (1) smooth pursuit, (2) horizontal and vertical saccades, (3) near point of convergence (NPC) distance, (4) horizontal vestibular ocular reflex (VOR), and (5) visual motion sensitivity (VMS). Participants were also administered the Post-Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS).Sixty-one percent of patients reported symptom provocation after at least 1 VOMS item. All VOMS items were positively correlated to the PCSS total symptom score. The VOR (odds ratio [OR], 3.89; P < .001) and VMS (OR, 3.37; P < .01) components of the VOMS were most predictive of being in the concussed group. An NPC distance ?5 cm and any VOMS item symptom score ?2 resulted in an increase in the probability of correctly identifying concussed patients of 38% and 50%, respectively. Receiver operating characteristic curves supported a model including the VOR, VMS, NPC distance, and ln(age) that resulted in a high predicted probability (area under the curve = 0.89) for identifying concussed patients.The VOMS demonstrated internal consistency as well as sensitivity in identifying patients with concussions. The current findings provide preliminary support for the utility of the VOMS as a brief vestibular/ocular motor screen after sport-related concussions. The VOMS may augment current assessment tools and may serve as a single component of a comprehensive approach to the assessment of concussions.

Dataset Information

Vestibular and Ocular Motor Properties in Lateral Medullary Stroke Critically Depend on the Level of the Medullary Lesion.

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Vestibular and Ocular Motor Properties in Lateral Medullary Stroke Critically Depend on the Level of the Medullary Lesion.

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