Unmasked Vertigo
Journal Title: Archives in Neurology & Neuroscience (ANN) - Year 2018, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Vertigo is a very unpleasant symptom for the patient and a complex clinical problem for the neurologist. First of all: a clear definition is needed, useful for both patients and clinicians and this doesn’t seem a problem but, in my professional life I haven’t yet found a satisfactory definition: I think that the following is clear and comprehensive: Vertigo is a distorted perception of the position or movement of head in the space. It may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting and by other vegetative symptoms; other signs may be nystagmus and postural deviations with falls. First of all, we must have complete knowledge of the structures which give a contribution to our perception of the position and shift of our head in the surrounding space. These are: 1) The vestibular receptors, 2) The sight, 3) The proprioceptive sensations conveyed by Goll and Burdach tracts in the posterior spinal cord, 4) The cerebellar afferents carrying unconscious information, 5) in a subsidiary way the exteroceptive sensitive system. Vestibular receptor is a very sophisticated structure devoted to monitor both the position of the head and its movement in the space: it fulfils this job through the osseous-membranous labyrinth positioned at skull base in the petrous bone and oriented according to the 3 main plans of the space, sagittal, coronal and horizontal; the apparatus is complex, with osseous and membranous components; the last, surrounded by perilympha and filled with endolymphatic fluid, contains utriculus and sacculous and semicircular channels with a larger extremity (ampulla); the epithelium is organized with maculas and cristae provided with hairy cells, disposed in such a way to be sensible to the position or shift of the head in every direction; utriculus and sacculous are linear acceleration and position receptors, while the semicircular channels are specifically sensible to rotation;.
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- EP ID EP631530
- DOI 10.33552/ANN.2018.02.000526
- Views 94
- Downloads 0
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