Perez-Heydrich C, Pile M, Padova D, Cevallos A, Newman P, McNamara TP, Sayyid ZN, Agrawal Y. Local spatial navigation or "steering" in patients with vestibular loss in a virtual reality environment.
J Vestib Res 2023;
33:377-383. [PMID:
38073359 DOI:
10.3233/ves-230065]
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Abstract
BACKGROUND
Patients with vestibular loss have reduced wayfinding ability, but the association between vestibular loss and impaired steering spatial navigation is unclear.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether vestibular loss is associated with reduced steering navigation performance in a virtual reality (VR) environment containing obstacles.
METHODS
17 ambulatory adults with vestibular loss were age/sex-matched to healthy controls. Participants traversed a VR hallway with obstacles, and their navigation performance was compared using metrics such as collisions, time, total distance travelled, and speed in single and multivariate analysis.
RESULTS
In univariate analysis there was no significant difference in collisions between vestibular patients and controls (1.84 vs. 2.24, p = 0.974). However, vestibular patients took more time, longer routes, and had lower speeds to complete the task (56.9 vs. 43.9 seconds, p < 0.001; 23.1 vs. 22.0 meters, p = 0.0312; 0.417 vs. 0.544 m/s, p < 0.001). These results were confirmed in multivariate analysis.
CONCLUSIONS
This study found that patients with vestibular loss displayed slower gait speeds and traveled longer distances, though did not make more collisions, during a VR steering navigation task. Beyond the known influence of vestibular function on gait speed, vestibular loss may also contribute to less efficient steering navigation through an obstacle-laden environment, through neural mechanisms that remain to be elucidated.
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