title: Ocular vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials in healthy pilots and student pilots.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Excellent vestibular function (including utricular function) is important for pilots to maintain correct spatial orientation during flight. Vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) recorded from extraocular muscles, the so-called ocular VEMP (oVEMP), can be used to evaluate utricular function. However, oVEMP has not been applied to pilots because of lack of reliable normative data. Hence, this study is designed to establish preliminary normative data for oVEMP induced by air-conducted sound in pilots and student pilots.
  
  
  METHODS
  There were 62 healthy student pilots (30 male and 32 age-matched female) and 31 healthy male fighter pilots who were recruited as study participants. During binaural air-conducted sound stimulation oVEMP was recorded bilaterally. The latencies of nI and pI, nI-pI interval, peak-to-peak nI-pI amplitude, and asymmetry ratio (AR) of oVEMP in all participants were collected. Meanwhile, the effects of gender and age on oVEMP were also investigated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The latencies of nI and pI, nI-pI interval, nI-pI interpeak amplitude, and AR of oVEMP in all participants were 10.35 +/- 0.66 ms, 15.18 +/- 1.07 ms, 4.75 +/- 0.99 ms, 6.75 +/- 4.13 microV, and 13.22 +/- 9.13%, respectively. No significant difference existed between male student pilots and male pilots in terms of oVEMP parameters. The only significant difference was the nI-pI amplitude between age-matched male and female student pilots: 6.96 +/- 3.85 microV for male student pilots and 5.47 +/- 3.10 microV for female student pilots.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  oVEMP should be interpreted with the AR rather than raw amplitude itself. Each institution should determine its own normal values.
authors: Vestibular Function Laboratory, Institute of Aviation Medicine, Air Force, P.R. China, No. 28 Fucheng Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100142, PR China. sujiang_xie@yahoo.com.cn
authors: Su-Jiang
authors: SJ
authors: Xie
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Xu
authors: Hong-Zhe
authors: HZ
authors: Bi
authors: Hong-Bo
authors: HB
authors: Jia
authors: Ying-Juan
authors: YJ
authors: Zheng
authors: Yan-Ge
authors: YG
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000337:Aerospace Medicine; D002681:China; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008889:Military Personnel; D012016:Reference Values; D058585:Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult