Elsevier

Brain Research

Volume 1537, 6 November 2013, Pages 244-259
Brain Research

Review
Vestibular insights into cognition and psychiatry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2013.08.058Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • We review the link between vestibular function and psychiatric and cognitive symptoms.

  • Several brain regions are implicated in both vestibular pathways and psychiatric disorders.

  • Vestibular loss can lead to spatial memory and spatial navigational impairments.

  • Preliminary evidence suggests vestibular involvement in other cognitive and psychiatric symptoms.

Abstract

The vestibular system has traditionally been thought of as a balance apparatus; however, accumulating research suggests an association between vestibular function and psychiatric and cognitive symptoms, even when balance is measurably unaffected. There are several brain regions that are implicated in both vestibular pathways and psychiatric disorders. The present review examines the anatomical associations between the vestibular system and various psychiatric disorders. Despite the lack of direct evidence for vestibular pathology in the key psychiatric disorders selected for this review, there is a substantial body of literature implicating the vestibular system in each of the selected psychiatric disorders. The second part of this review provides complimentary evidence showing the link between vestibular dysfunction and vestibular stimulation upon cognitive and psychiatric symptoms. In summary, emerging research suggests the vestibular system can be considered a potential window for exploring brain function beyond that of maintenance of balance, and into areas of cognitive, affective and psychiatric symptomology. Given the paucity of biological and diagnostic markers in psychiatry, novel avenues to explore brain function in psychiatric disorders are of particular interest and warrant further exploration.

Keywords

Vestibular
Psychiatry
Cognition
Neuroimaging

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

1

Equal first author.