BACKGROUND:
The ocular vestibular myogenic potentials (oVEMP) can be elicited by
monaural air-conducted sound stimulation, and are usually recorded from the
contralateral eye. In clinical setting a binaural stimulation would save
time and require less effort from the subjects.
OBJECTIVE:
We evaluated the differences between monaural and binaural stimulation, and
the possible effect of age and gender on oVEMP parameters.
METHODS:
Air-conducted oVEMP were recorded by binaural and by monaural stimulation in
a group of 54 normal subjects, aged from 12 to 83 years, and in 50
vestibular patients. From each side, we measured the latency of the N1
component, and the peak-to-peak N1-P1 amplitude. For both parameters we also
computed the asymmetry ratio.
RESULTS:
In normal subjects binaural stimulation produced slightly larger responses
than monaural stimulation; detectability, latency and amplitude ratio were
the same for the two techniques. We found no differences related to gender,
and the age-induced amplitude decline was likely to be negligible.
oVEMP recorded not in an acute phase of their disorder, proved to be
abnormal in about 20% of the patients, and the normal or abnormal
findings obtained either with monaural or with binaural stimulation were
always concordant.
CONCLUSIONS:
The oVEMP obtained after binaural and monaural stimulation are very similar,
and they are largely independent from age and gender.
