Vertigo

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My mom loves to tell me stories about when I was baby, and I, in turn, love listening to them. I was born prematurely, and the doctors at the time diagnosed me with quite a few conditions. One of those conditions was vertigo. Naturally, my interest was peaked and I knew I would be able to find a correlation with histology. All I previously knew about vertigo was that it caused uncontrollable imbalance in a person, which is caused by the ear, the organ responsible for balance. The condition affects some individuals more than others. Some adults cannot get out of bed on a bad day, while it affects others only at certain times. For example, I cannot stand straight when I'm praying. Whether I'm standing up or kneeling down, when my eyes are closed, I lose control of my balance. I usually sway and lightly knock into the people on either side of me. Chapter 25 of our textbook focuses on the ear, and one clinical correlation described is vertigo. It is described as "the sensation of rotation without equilibrium" and "signifies dysfunction of the vestibular system." Causes include viral infections, drugs and tumors such as acoustic neuroma. These neuromas develope near the internal acoustic meatus and exert pressure on the vestibular part of cranial nerve VIII. Vertigo can be stimulated in normal adults with excessive stimulation of the semicircular ducts. Excessive stimulation of the utricle can also produce motion sickness in some adults.


In essence, this describes how vertigo can arise in an individual -- through manipulation of the internal ear. The relation to the cranial nerve was a reminder of how all our body systems work together to produce an overall effect. While we cannot necessarily prevent vertigo from occurring, we now know why it is caused.


The information above was sourced from: Ross, Michael H., and Wojciech Pawlina. "Ear." Histology: A Text and Atlas: With Correlated Cell and Molecular Biology. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Health, 2011. 937. Print.