PATHOPHYSIOLOGY OF VESTIBULAR DISORDERS

这个项目的目标是改进诊断和治疗 患有耳神经病的患者。的三个相互关联的方面 对项目进行了描述。调查人员将继续研究眩晕 患者将这些病例添加到他们的大型数据库中。本研究 将在一系列测试中包含精确的计算机控制刺激 测量前庭系统的各个方面。眼球运动和 姿势数据在线收集和分析。结果被输入到 数据库以及对新病例的不断完善和鉴定 在这个项目中，头晕目眩正在进行中。在第二组实验中， 研究人员将对家族性周期性共济失调患者进行研究 这种疾病被认为与染色体19p上的一个区域有关。 将进行实验以缩小这一缺陷，可能会 钾离子通道紊乱。调查员已经收集了几个 有家族性障碍的家庭，并在临床上对他们进行跟踪 就像用分子生物学技术评估它们一样。第三套 研究将与光学显微镜在内部看到的病理相关联 耳朵、神经和脑干与几年来收集的数据 临床实验室数据库中的患者。预计 每年将有8-10名先前研究良好的患者作为 因自然原因而死亡的结果，用于尸检 他们的前庭系统。

The objective of this project is to improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with otoneurologic disorders. Three interrelated aspects of the projects are described. The investigators will continue to study dizzy patients with addition of these cases to their large database. This study will include precisely computer-controlled stimuli in a series of tests that measure various aspects of the vestibular systems. Eye movement and posture data are collected and analyzed on line. Results are entered into the database and continued refinement and identification of new cases of dizziness are ongoing in this project. In the second group of experiment, the investigators will study patients with familial periodic ataxia in which the disorder has been linked to a region on chromosome 19p. Experiments will be conducted to narrow this defect, possibly to a potassium channel disorder. The investigator's have collected several families with familial disorders and are following them clinically as well as evaluating them with molecular biology techniques. The third set of studies will correlate the pathology seen by light microscopy in the inner ear, nerve and brain stem with the data collected over several years on the patients in the clinical laboratory database. It is anticipated that 8-10 previously well studied patients will be available each year, as a result of death due to natural causes, for postmortem evaluations for their vestibular systems.