Affiliations: Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, R.S. Dow Neurological Sciences Institute, and Department of Neuro-otology, Portland, OR
Note: [*] Reprint address: Robert J. Peterka, Dept of Neuro-otology, NO10, Good Samaritan Hospital & Medical Center, 1040 N.W. 22nd Avenue, Portland, OR 97210.
Note: [**] Dr. Peterka is presently the Scientific Systems Manager at Department of Neuro-otology and Assistant Scientist at R.S. Dow Neurological Sciences Institute.
Abstract: The dynamic response properties of horizontal vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) and optokinetic reflex (OKR) were characterized in 216 human subjects ranging in age from 7 to 81 y. The object of this cross-sectional study was to determine the effects of aging on VOR and OKR reflex dynamics, and to identify the distributions of parameters that describe VOR and OKR responses to pseudorandom stimuli in a putatively normal population. In general, VOR and OKR response parameters changed in a manner consistent with declining function with increasing age. For the VOR this was reflected in declining response amplitudes, although the magnitude of the decline was small relative to the variability of the data. For the OKR the lag time of the response, probably associated with the time required for visual information processing, increased linearly with age at a rate of about 1 ms per year.
