A balanced view of the evidence leads to sound conclusions. A reply to J.G. Colebatch 'Sound conclusions?'.

摘要

In my review (Curthoys, 2010), I discussed neural evidence concerning ocular and cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (oVEMPs and cVEMPs) and how this evidence leads to a reconsideration of interpretations of cVEMPs and oVEMPs. In an Editorial Colebatch questioned my conclusions (Colebatch, 2010). I noted that in guinea pigs, irregular afferents from the utricular macula are activated by air-conducted sound (ACS) as well as bone-conducted vibration (BCV): this is not an isolated result from one or two aberrant neurons at extremely high intensities of ACS - many irregular utricular neurons are activated by ACS. Such a result calls into question the interpretation of nlO of the ACS oVEMP as being due to sacculo-ocular projections: it seems much more likely that ACS activates utricular neurons and they cause the nlO of the con-tralateral oVEMP to ACS