EVestG™: A diagnostic measure for schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness associated with multiple neuropathological, neurochemical and genetic abnormalities. The benefits of a validated, quantitative diagnosis tool are well established. Electrovestibulography, a new method similar to ECOG, can detect and record neural activity generated by the vestibular system. The normal EVestG response as well as dynamic measures averaged “background-onAA” (onAA=acceleration phase of tilt) and “background-onBB” (onBB=deceleration phase of tilt) of excitatory (ipsi-lateral tilt) vestibular responses are compared for a small group of schizophrenia patients (n=4) and age matched healthy controls (n=10). Our preliminary results show an apparent discrimination between control and schizophrenia groups. Schizophrenia patients appear not only to exhibit an overall decreased EVestG signal amplitude but a suppressed dynamic response calculated by the averaged EVestG “background-onBB” measure. Increased sample size is required to validate these findings.