Motion sensitivity and caloric responsiveness in vestibular migraine and Meniere's disease

Abstract

Objectives We examined whether scores on a motion sensitivity questionnaire (MSQ) could distinguish between vestibular migraine (VM) and Meniere's disease (MD). As a secondary goal, we examined whether scores on the MSQ correlated with results from caloric testing. Study Design This study administered a telephone questionnaire to subjects who met clinical criteria for vestibular migraine, Meniere's disease, and controls. Methods A MSQ was administered to 20 subjects meeting American Academy of Otolaryngology (AAO) criteria for MD, 30 subjects meeting Neuhauser criteria for both probable vestibular migraine (pVM) and definite vestibular migraine (dVM), and 22 controls. Results The average score on the MSQ was 5.9 for VM, 4.25 for MD, and 0.4 for controls. Both VM and MD scored significantly higher than controls (p= 0.0001), but results were not statistically different from each other (p= 0.17). However, average score for subjects with dVM was 7.1, which was significantly higher than subjects with pVM, whose average score was 4.2 (p= 0.045), and higher than subjects with MD (p=0.048). When each question of the MSQ was analyzed, motion sensitivity to riding in a car was found to be significantly different between VM (average score 1.1) and MD (average score 0.5), with p value of 0.048. Scores of MSQ did not correlate with total eye speed on caloric testing. Conclusions Subjects with VM and MD had elevated levels of motion sensitivity compared to controls. Subjects with VM had more motion sensitivity to riding in a car than those with MD, but their TES were not different.

Motion sickness susceptibility in healthy subjects and vestibular patients: Effects of gender, age and trait-anxiety

“…This can be explained by the small number of tested patients with bilateral deficit. The higher MSS in vestibular patients without vestibular loss (nVL), in particular for vestibular migraine, confirmed the existing findings [7,18].…”

Meniere’s, migraine, and motion sickness

“…Motion sickness susceptibility scores after diagnosis (MSC scores) were 1.5 times higher in Meniere's disease patients compared with controls. This is similar to that reported in a telephone survey by Sharon & Hullar [6]. Compared with controls, Meniere's disease patients also suffered from more headaches and migraine, increased VDD, higher SWID4 scores, and increased syncope.…”

“…A telephone survey of patients with MD suggested that they had elevated motion sickness susceptibility compared to controls but not as elevated as patients with vestibular migraine [6]. Here, we aimed to increase our understanding by screening a large population of Meniere's disease patients and healthy controls with an online version of a validated motion sickness susceptibility questionnaire (MSSQ) [7,8].…”

Vestibular Perception and the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex in Young and Older Adults

“…We found no evidence of a strong relationship between gain or phase thresholds and detection or discrimination thresholds measured at 0.5 Hz, suggesting that psychometric results may indeed provide information not available from reflexive measurements alone. Recent data suggest, for example, that subjects with migraine have altered perceptual thresholds to tilt although they do not necessarily have different VOR responses than normal controls (Lewis et al 2011; Sharon and Hullar 2013). The finding that there is no close correspondence between perceptual values and the VOR supports the concept that the two may indeed carry different information about peripheral vestibular function leading, likely dictated by higher-order processes (Merfeld et al 2005a, 2005b).…”