DIZZYNET 2020: basic and clinical vestibular research united

Excerpt

Our current clinical knowledge of the vestibular system has greatly benefitted from more than two centuries of basic experimental research on the anatomical structure of peripheral and central vestibular networks, vestibular signaling properties and their functional implications for gaze, posture, locomotion, and spatial orientation. Clinical standard applications, such as testing of the vestibular-ocular reflex by head impulses or quantification of otolith function by vestibular evoked myogenic potentials, are based on evidence gained from experiments in a variety of vertebrate species. The almost identical structure of sensory endorgans and neuronal pathways in different vertebrates is the prerequisite for this translation [1]. The vestibular research community has the particular chance to take advantage of this fact and use the scope of novel methods and techniques to foster interdisciplinary research from bench to bedside and back. The DIZZYNET aims to provide a platform for exchange between basic, translational and clinical researchers, who specialize in vestibular, balance, and gait disorders [2]. At the sixth DIZZYNET meeting, which took place in Sonnenhausen near Munich in October 2019, experts from 20 European countries and the USA discussed innovations in different fields of vestibular research. We have collected selected contributions presented at this meeting in the current DIZZYNET issue of the Journal of Neurology: …