Findings of cognitive changes in unilateral vestibular loss have been less consistent. In a large study, 50 patients with unilateral labyrinthine hypofunction as a consequence find more of previous vestibular neuritis were compared to 50 age- and sex-matched healthy controls on their spatial working memory performance (using the Corsi block task) and their navigation abilities (Guidetti et al., 2008). Results

showed spatial working memory as well as navigational impairments in both left and right labyrinthine-deficient patients as compared to controls. In contrast, an earlier study found a trend toward spatial memory and navigation impairments in patients with right, but not left, unilateral vestibular deafferentation (Hufner et al., 2007). Attention processes (involved in simple, inhibitory, and forced choice reaction time tasks) have also been described as compromised in patients with well compensated (no symptoms of dizziness or definable postural deficit) surgically confirmed unilateral vestibular loss, particularly when patients were simultaneously engaged in a postural challenge task (Redfern et al., 2004). Beyond spatial navigation and memory, the capacity to perform mental rotation

tasks has been reported as impaired PLX-4720 nmr in a small sample of patients (n=8) with bilateral vestibular loss as compared to 14 healthy controls ( Grabherr et al., 2011). There is also some references in the literature associating vestibular loss with impairments with mental arithmetic or dyscalculia ( Risey and Briner, 1990 and Smith, 2012); however the findings are inconsistent (e.g. see Andersson et al. (2003)). Some further support for vestibular input to various cognitive tasks is derived from galvanic and caloric vestibular stimulation studies. For example, a recent study applied suprathreshold bilateral bipolar galvanic vestibular stimulation to 120 healthy adults and compared their performance on a cognitive battery to a control condition which involved no GVS or subthreshold stimulation ( Dilda et al., 2012). Results were consistent with the literature on bilateral vestibular loss

and indicated that galvanic vestibular stimulation significantly degraded performance on short-term spatial memory, egocentric mental rotation (perspective taking) with no difference noted in other areas of cognition (including reaction 2-hydroxyphytanoyl-CoA lyase time and dual tasking). An earlier study using unilateral caloric stimulation in healthy individuals suggested that caloric stimulation selectively activates contralateral cerebral structures and enhances cognitive processes mediated by these structures, with left ear stimulation improving spatial memory and right ear stimulation improving verbal memory ( Bachtold et al., 2001). Given that the cognitive changes in spatial memory associated with vestibular loss remain apparent 5–10 years following vestibular neurectomies (Brandt et al., 2005 and Schautzer et al.