Management of vestibular dysfunction may include treatment with medications that are thought to act to suppress vestibular function and reduce or eliminate abnormal sensitivity to head motions. The extent to which vestibular medications act centrally or peripherally is still debated. In this study, two commonly prescribed medications, meclizine and diazepam, and a candidate for future clinical use, JNJ7777120, were evaluated for their effects on short latency compound action potentials generated by the peripheral vestibular system and corresponding central neural relays (i.e., vestibular sensory-evoked potentials, VsEPs). The effects of the selected drugs developed slowly over the course of two hours in the mouse. Findings indicate that meclizine (600 mg/kg) and diazepam (> 60 mg/kg) can act on peripheral elements of the vestibular maculae whereas diazepam also acts most effectively on central gravity receptor circuits to exert its suppressive effects. The novel pharmacological agent JNJ7777120 (160 mg/kg) acts in the vestibular periphery to enhance macular responses to transient stimuli (VsEPs) while, hypothetically, suppressing macular responses to sustained or slowly changing stimuli.
Keywords: Brain temperature; Level of action; Macular vestibular pathway; Vestibular medications; VsEP.
© 2021. Association for Research in Otolaryngology.