Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago Medical School, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Hippocampus. 2010 Jan;20(1):36-43. doi: 10.1002/hipo.20588.
Studies in both experimental animals and human patients have demonstrated that peripheral vestibular lesions, especially bilateral lesions, are associated with spatial memory impairment that is long-lasting and may even be permanent. Electrophysiological evidence from animals indicates that bilateral vestibular loss causes place cells and theta activity to become dysfunctional; the most recent human evidence suggests that the hippocampus may cause atrophy in patients with bilateral vestibular lesions. Taken together, these studies suggest that self-motion information provided by the vestibular system is important for the development of spatial memory by areas of the brain such as the hippocampus, and when it is lost, spatial memory is impaired. This naturally suggests the converse possibility that activation of the vestibular system may enhance memory. Surprisingly, there is some human evidence that this may be the case. This review considers the relationship between the vestibular system and memory and suggests that the evolutionary age of this primitive sensory system as well as how it detects self-motion (i.e., detection of acceleration vs. velocity) may be the reasons for its unique contribution to spatial memory.
研究表明，无论是在实验动物还是人类患者中，外周前庭损伤，尤其是双侧损伤，均与空间记忆损伤有关，这种损伤具有持久性，甚至可能是永久性的。动物的电生理证据表明，双侧前庭损失会导致位置细胞和θ波活动出现功能障碍；最近的人类证据表明，双侧前庭病变患者的海马体可能会出现萎缩。综合这些研究，我们可以得出结论，即前庭系统提供的自身运动信息对于大脑（如海马体）区域空间记忆的发展非常重要，当这种信息缺失时，空间记忆就会受损。这自然而然地暗示了另一种可能性，即前庭系统的激活可能会增强记忆。令人惊讶的是，有一些人类证据表明情况确实如此。本文综述了前庭系统与记忆之间的关系，并提出了这一古老的感觉系统的进化年龄以及它如何检测自身运动（即，检测加速度与速度）的问题，这些可能是它对空间记忆做出独特贡献的原因。
