Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline Street, Baltimore, Maryland.
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, 801 Welch Road, Palo Alto, California.
Otol Neurotol. 2021 Dec 1;42(10):e1524-e1531. doi: 10.1097/MAO.0000000000003289.
This study evaluated whether vestibular dysfunction is associated with reduced spatial navigation performance.
Cross-sectional study.
Otolaryngology Clinic in the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center and an analogous virtual reality (VR) environment.
Eligible patients had diagnosis of unilateral or bilateral vestibular loss. Matched healthy controls were recruited at 1:1 ratio.
The navigation task involved a route-based or place-based strategy in both real world and VR environments.
Navigation performance was measured by distance travelled relative to optimal distance (i.e., path ratio) and the Judgments of Relative Direction (JRD) task, whereby participants had to recall relative angular distances between landmarks.
The study sample included 20 patients with vestibular loss (mean age: 61 yrs, SD: 10.2 yrs) and 20 matched controls (mean age: 60 yrs, SD: 10.4 yrs). Patients with vestibular loss travelled significantly greater distance using both route-based (path ratio 1.3 vs. 1.0, p = 0.02) and place-based (path ratio 2.6 vs. 2.0, p = 0.03) strategies in the real world. Overall, participants performed worse in virtual reality compared to real world in both path ratio (2.2 vs. 1.7; p = 0.04) and JRD error (78° vs. 67°; p < 0.01). Furthermore, while controls exhibited significant positive correlations between real world and VR performance in place-based (β = 0.75; p < 0.001) and JRD tasks (β = 0.70; p < 0.001), patients with vestibular loss exhibited no similar correlations.
The vestibular system appears to play a role in navigation ability during both actual and virtual navigation, suggesting a role for static vestibular signals in navigation performance.
本研究评估了前庭功能障碍是否与空间导航表现下降有关。
横断面研究。
约翰霍普金斯门诊中心的耳鼻喉科诊所和类似的虚拟现实（VR）环境。
符合条件的患者有单侧或双侧前庭损失的诊断。以 1:1 的比例招募了匹配的健康对照者。
导航任务涉及在真实世界和 VR 环境中基于路线或基于位置的策略。
导航性能通过相对于最佳距离（即路径比）和相对方向判断（JRD）任务来衡量，参与者必须回忆地标之间的相对角度距离。
研究样本包括 20 名前庭损失患者（平均年龄：61 岁，标准差：10.2 岁）和 20 名匹配的对照者（平均年龄：60 岁，标准差：10.4 岁）。前庭损失患者在真实世界中使用基于路线（路径比 1.3 比 1.0，p=0.02）和基于位置（路径比 2.6 比 2.0，p=0.03）的策略时，行驶的距离明显更远。总体而言，与真实世界相比，参与者在 VR 中的路径比（2.2 比 1.7；p=0.04）和 JRD 误差（78°比 67°；p<0.01）表现更差。此外，虽然对照组在基于位置（β=0.75；p<0.001）和 JRD 任务（β=0.70；p<0.001）中表现出真实世界和 VR 性能之间存在显著的正相关，但前庭损失患者则没有类似的相关性。
前庭系统似乎在实际和虚拟导航期间的导航能力中发挥作用，这表明静态前庭信号在导航性能中发挥作用。
