VEMP in Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Vestibulo ocular reflex and vestibule spinal reflexes are certain reflexes which are responsible for maintaining the balance and can be assessed by cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic potentials (cVEMP) and ocular VEMP (oVEMP) respectively. cVEMP reflects vestibular system activity that is elicited by high intensity sounds and detected as change in muscle potentials in the sternocleidomastoid muscle and o VEMP is a short latency vestibular evoked potential in response to a loud stimulus, recorded from contra lateral extra ocular muscles. VEMP _and oVEMP were recorded from thirty participants with and without diabetes mellitus. The latency and amplitude measures of cVEMP and o VEMP were studied within and across each group of participants. The findings revealed that the latency, amplitude and amplitude asymmetry ratio of peaks of c VEMP and o VEMP in participants without diabetes were in accordance to the previously published reports. Auditory Brainstem Responses in participants with diabetes mellitus were normal suggesting normal eighth nerve transmission till brainstem level. The duration of diabetes was not found to be a significant factor affecting pure tone average, cVEMP and oVEMP results. The latency of cVEMP and oVEMP peaks were not significantly different between individuals with and without diabetes mellitus but the amplitude of oVEMP and cVEMP responses were reduced in individuals with diabetes mellitus when suggesting a normal nerve conduction but a probable end organ deficit in persons with diabetes. The results also suggested that amplitude measures rather than latency measures were sensitive to vestibular end organ impairments.