Abstract
There is little definitive evidence of the clinical significance of the vestibular-cardiovascular reflex in humans, despite the fact that the vestibular system is known to contribute to cardiovascular control in animals. The present study involved 248 dizzy patients (127 male patients and 121 female patients) aged 65 years and younger. We classified all participants into three groups based on their vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) responses; absent VEMP, asymmetry VEMP and normal VEMP. To investigate the effect of the otolith disorder, which was estimated by the VEMP, on the orthostatic blood pressure responses, the subjects’ systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate were monitored during the orthostatic test after they actively stood up. The male patients in the absent VEMP group had a significant drop in their DBP at 1 min after active standing up (P < 0.05) without any change in their SBP. Conversely, male patients in the asymmetry VEMP and normal VEMP groups showed a significant increase in the SBP at 1 min after active standing up (P < 0.05). Female patients in the absent VEMP group did not show any significant drop in their blood pressure after standing up (P > 0.05). In the entire group of participants, a total of 19.6% of the patients in the absent VEMP group fulfilled the criteria for orthostatic hypotension (OH), which was significantly > the 8.6% of patients in the normal VEMP group and the 7.2% in the asymmetry VEMP group (P < 0.05). Our results suggest that vestibular disorders due to the dysfunction of otolith organs provoke OH.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by grants-in-aid for scientific research from the Japan society for the promotion of science, a grant from the intractable diseases fund (vestibular disorders) of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan and a grant-in-aid from Gifu University School of Medicine for the promotion of science.
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Aoki, M., Sakaida, Y., Tanaka, K. et al. Evidence for vestibular dysfunction in orthostatic hypotension. Exp Brain Res 217, 251–259 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-011-2989-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-011-2989-0