title: Impaired suppression of vestibular nystagmus by fixation of visual and acoustic targets in neurological patients.
abstract: Suppression of vestibular nystagmus induced by fixation of visual and acoustic targets moving with the head during sinusoidal rotation (0.1 Hz, 75 degrees/second peak velocity) was tested in cerebellar and noncerebellar patients. Visual suppression was impaired greatly in cerebellar patients, without correlation with visual smooth-pursuit defects. Acoustic suppression was equal to or slightly weaker than visual suppression. In noncerebellar patients, a disturbance of visual suppression was found only in the presence of a severe impairment of pursuit eye movements. Acoustic suppression did not parallel the visual-suppression pattern. In clinical vestibular examination, an impaired modulation of the vestibulo-ocular reflex suggests a cerebellar dysfunction, but also can occur in the presence of disorders of other parts of the CNS severely affecting the SP system.
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001927:Brain Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000503:physiopathology; D002526:Cerebellar Diseases / Q000503:physiopathology; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology; D005133:Eye Movements; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D007699:Kinesthesis / Q000502:physiology; D012399:Rotation; D014726:Vestibular Nuclei / Q000503:physiopathology; D014722:Vestibule, Labyrinth / Q000503:physiopathology*