[VESTIBULAR PROSTHETICS: CONCEPT, APPROACHES, RESULTS]

Abstract

Unlike prosthetic hearing, which develops technology for more than 30 years, the problem of the vestibular prosthesis developed a little more than one and half decades. Meanwhile, the involvement of the vestibular system in ensuring the normal functioning of the visual, motor and other systems of the body determines its decisive contribution to the spatial orientation of humans and animals. In case of damage of the vestibular apparatus (the labyrinth), there are serious violations of posture control, stabilization of sight, spatial orientation, psychological status, that is, in the aggregate quality of human life deteriorates. At present, on the animals developed technology of prosthetic semicircular canals, sensing angular acceleration, and control eye movements in dynamic situations. New approaches based on the replacement of the lost natural vestibular afferent impulses by electrical stimulation through multichannel vestibular prosthesis, are successfully introducing into the clinic.