The Narrowband CE-Chirp Stimulus Does Not Necessarily Produce More Robust Cervical Vestibular Evoked Myogenic Potential

OBJECTIVE: Various studies have been conducted to search for the most optimal stimulus for eliciting cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential (cVEMP). More recently, there is a growing interest to study the usefulness of chirp stimuli in cVEMP recording. Nevertheless, contradictory outcomes have been reported across the studies, and further research with larger samples would be beneficial to provide better insight into this matter. As such, the present study was carried out to compare cVEMP results between narrowband (NB) CE-Chirp (centered at 500 Hz) and 500 Hz tone burst stimuli.

DESIGN: In this study that employed a comparative study design, 98 normally hearing adults aged between 19 and 24 years were enrolled. All of them underwent the cVEMP testing based on the recommended test protocol. The stimuli were a 500 Hz tone burst and a NB CE-Chirp (360-720 Hz) presented through insert earphones at an intensity level of 120.5 dB peSPL.

RESULTS: For each stimulus, cVEMP results did not differ significantly between the ears (p > 0.05). Relative to the 500 Hz tone burst, the NB CE-Chirp stimulus produced statistically shorter P1 and N1 latencies (p < 0.001). On the other hand, P1-N1 amplitude was found to be comparable between the two stimuli (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The present study did not find any supporting evidence that the NB CE-Chirp stimulus (centered at 500 Hz) outperformed the conventional 500 Hz tone burst in the cVEMP testing. Both stimuli are considered equally appropriate to record cVEMP responses in clinical settings.