Mechanisms Determining Chronic Vestibular Symptoms

Dizziness and balance disorders are extremely common medical problems. Patients with dizziness are seen by GPs, neurologists, ear specialists, cardiologists and old age physicians. This is so because dizziness can come from the brain, the ear or the heart and it is more common in the elderly. An extremely common from of sudden onset (acute) dizziness is a condition called vestibular neuritis or labyrinthitis, a viral infection of the inner ear. Although initially freightening at least half of the patients recover within weeks. However, the other half go on to develop various degrees of long term (chronic) dizzy symptoms, with considerable impact for the sufferer, his/her family and the economy (working days lost). The main thrust of our research proposals deals with this question: what are the reasons why some patients with vestibular neuritis do well but others don’t? Can we identify different causes interfering with the recovery? Specifically, we are probing the hypothesis that processing of balance relevant signals by the cerebral cortex may be faulty in these chronic patients. We are confident that understanding of such brain processes in dizzy patients will allow us to set up the basis for rational rehabilitation programs and/or preventive measures.