Cervical Vestibular Myogenic Potentials (C-VEMP) in Healthy Individuals: Comparison between Tone-Burst and Click

Introduction: Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential (c-VEMP) is one of the clinical tools to evaluate vestibular function. The c-VEMP can be recorded from sternocleido mastoid muscle by auditory stimulation with various sound stimuli. The aim of this study was to compare the VEMP responses evoked by tone-burst with those evoked by click stimuli in healthy young individuals. Methods: Thirty healthy volunteers (15 males, 15 females; 60 ears). To perform the test, it was used an evoked potential equipment (Eclipse Platform, EP25, Interacoustic, Denmark) with a module for c-VEMP. To obtain the c-VEMP response, it was presented 200 monaural stimulation with tone burst and click, in a randomized way for each subject, with intensity 100dB HL at a frequency of 500 Hz. Results: The sample consisted of 30 subjects, 15 women (50%) and 15 men (50%), aged 18-36 years. The mean age was 27.2 (±5.4). All subjects had c-VEMP responses in both tests, with both stimuli. The latencies p1 and n1 of tone-burst cVEMP were significantly longer and the p1-n1 amplitudes were significantly greater as well. Conclusion: A different database should be established before clinical application of c-VEMP for different stimuli. We recommend it because comparing tone-bur stand click, the latencies and amplitudes were significantly different, as observed among several labs.