Singlesweep analysed ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs) as a new parameter in patients with multiple sclerosis

Introduction:

Neurological diseases often present themselves as disorders in the stimulus pathway. These kinds of disorders are often detected through evoked potentials. In addition to visually and electrically stimuli, acoustic stimuli are also used to check the auditory pathway. For example, Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. The occurring lesions in the myelin sheath lead to disorders in the transmission of stimuli. In recent work, in addition to the methods which were described above, vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs) are increasingly used for diagnosis.

Material and methods:

Using a self-developed technique at the Saarland University Hospital, it is possible to display tactile triggered VEMPs with a well-defined N10 amplitude in the oVEMPs and to evaluate them through a so called singlesweep analysis. In 10 young patients with MS and a low stress level (EDSS < 3) this technique was used and compared with the results of normative data.

Results:

The determined N10 amplitudes of the MS patients averaged 20.5µV and were not significantly different from the mean value of 20.8µV of the normative data. In contrast, the latency evaluations with a mean value of 11.2 ms in the MS patients and 10.3 ms in the normative data in the two-sided t-test showed significant differences.

Conclusion:

In the study it could be shown that MS patients, who still feel their stress level as minor, have a homogeneous latency shift in the singlesweeps. Nevertheless, with the help of this new analysis method in the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, a new, possible parameter can be assigned.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)