Vestibulo-ocular reflex deficits with medial longitudinal fasciculus lesions

Swee T. Aw, Luke Chen, Michael J. Todd, Michael H. Barnett, G. Michael Halmagyi

The medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) is the final common pathway for all conjugate adducting horizontal eye movements, as well as for the vertical-torsional vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). MLF lesion causes adduction paresis of ipsilesional (adducting) eye with dissociated nystagmus of contralesional (abducting) eye-the well-known clinical syndrome of internuclear ophthalmoplegia (INO). We measured the VOR stimulation and also any catch-up saccades, from individual semicircular canal (SCC) evoked by the head impulse test (HIT), using head and binocular 3-dimensional scleral search coils in 27 multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, 8 with unilateral, 19 with bilateral INO. In unilateral INO, VOR gain (normal >0.90) from ipsilesional lateral SCC stimulation was 0.48 for the adducting eye and 0.81 for the abducting eye; 0.61 from contralesional anterior SCC stimulation and only 0.29 from contralesional posterior SCC stimulation. In bilateral INO, there were VOR gain deficits from all six SCCs: lateral SCC gains were asymmetrically reduced to 0.45 in the adducting eye and 0.66 in the abducting eye; anterior SCC gain was 0.48 and posterior SCC gain was only 0.19. Horizontal VOR versional dysconjugacy between adducting and abducting eyes at 0.66 was less severe than horizontal catch-up saccade versional dysconjugacy (0.44); normal >0.80. Unexpected partial preservation of horizontal VOR with greater catch-up saccade impairment from the adducting than abducting eye suggests that the ascending tract of Deiters (ATD), an extra-MLF pathway, also mediates the horizontal VOR, but not adducting horizontal saccades. Vertical VOR deficits will produce vertical oscillopsia with any vertical head movement and measurement of the vertical VOR could help with the diagnosis and quantitative evaluation of MLF lesions in suspected MS. Horizontal VOR deficits and catch-up saccade versional dysconjugacy in INO will cause gaze instability and horizontal oscillopsia during active horizontal head movements.