Age-related changes in the vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials.

Abstract

We sought to investigate the effects of gender and age on the vestibular-evoked myogenic potential (VEMP). Sixty healthy adult volunteers (28 male and 32 female) were investigated in this study. The subject age was distributed between 20 and 77 years old. No gender-related differences were detected in the VEMP. There was a significant correlation between age and both the evoking threshold and the pInII amplitude of the VEMP, whereas no significant correlation was observed between age and left-right differences of the VEMP. The correlation between age and the parameters of the VEMP is presumably secondary to age-related functional changes in the sensory and neural elements of the VEMP. It is safe to evaluate the VEMP using the value of the non-affected side when assessing unilateral lesions. However, it may be necessary to take age into account in evaluating the VEMP when bilateral lesions are suspected.