Test-Retest Reliability of Tone Burst-Induced 500 Hz Air-Conduction Masseter Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential in Healthy Individuals

Abstract

Background and objectives: Masseter vestibular evoked myogenic potential (mVEMP) is a newly developed tool which is used to assess the vestibulo-trigeminal neural and saccular functioning pathways. Recently, this test was added to a full test battery for evaluating the brainstem of people with neurological disorders and other vestibular diseases. For any test to qualify as a standard test, the test must have high reliability across all testing windows. Hence, the present study focused on validating the reliability of mVEMP in a large population.

Subjects and methods: The study included 50 healthy participants with normal hearing. All the participants were tested using mVEMP and underwent retest within a month after the initial test. All parameters (latencies, peak-to-peak amplitude, asymmetric ratio) were observed for both sessions. To determine the statistically significant differences between and across the sessions, non-parametric tests such as Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used.

Results: The test-retest reliability of all parameters were observed. The reliability was fair-to-good for P11 and N21 latencies. The other parameters showed less significance. There were no significant differences in sex and ear comparisons between and across the sessions.

Conclusions: Our study demonstrated that the mVEMP is a reliable test which can be used to assess peripheral vestibular system dysfunction and neurological conditions.

Keywords: Masseter; Reliability; Test-retest; Tone burst; Vestibular evoked myogenic potential.