Neuro-Otology: Problems of Dizziness, Balance and Hearing

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. This chapter expalins basic concepts of dizziness and vertigo, and discusses neuro-otological assessment for dizziness and vertigo. Dizziness is a substantial cause of morbidity, loss of time from work, repeated medical attendances and costly investigation - one study showed that on average more than four physicians were visited before precise diagnosis of a vestibular problem. The chapter presents the vestibular investigations, clinical disorders, and management of vestibular disorders. Direct observation of eye movements is useful, while recording techniques such as electronystagmography, video-oculography (VOG) and spiral coil recordings allow detailed evaluation and provide a permanent record for comparative purposes. Acute unilateral loss of vestibular function gives rise to symptoms of vertigo, nausea, vomiting, sweating, pallor and diarrhea. The chapter also discusses anatomy, physiology, definitions, introduction and basic concepts for hearing disorders. It describes the clinical examination of the ear and hearing, audiological investigations, auditory processing disorders, management of auditory disorders

Assembly of bacterial microchamber.

<p>A) Picture of an assembled microchamber connected to a reservoir at one side and to a needle at the other side, which will be connected later to a syringe pump. B) Schematic of a cross section of the microchamber. C) Image of bacteria growing in 2 dimensions.</p

Stable foci positions.

<p>^a: N is the number of unique stable foci used for ratio determinations.</p><p>^b: Foci positions were determined by dividing cells in four regions:</p><p>-central between 0.4 and 0.5 (region length 0.1)</p><p>-lateral between 0.15 and 0.33 (region length 0.18)</p><p>-neither central nor lateral between 0.33 and 0.4 (region length 0.07)</p><p>-polar between 0 and 0.15 (region length 0.15)</p><p>Given that polar foci were extremely rare with all strains, the ratio expected from random positioning in the three remaining regions was calculated by dividing the central, lateral or neither region lengths by the sum of these three region lengths, 0.35.</p><p>“Expo” stands for cells in exponential growth. “Stat” stands for stationary phase cells.</p><p>Stable foci positions.</p

Examples of stable and unstable replisome proteins foci.

<p>Using the Image J software, a line was drawn from pole to pole on each cell on the brightfield image (top picture), and translated to the fluorescent image frames (four bottom pictures show the first four frames, used for the analysis). This line is used as a fixed mark and indicates the position of the bacteria on the fluorescent images, where the general shape of bacteria is not visible. Spots were manually detected, only spots counting more than 5 pixels (I pixel ~ 140 nm) were taken into account as spots counting less than 5 pixels could be observed at a relatively high rate in wild-type cells devoid of fluorescent protein and presumably result from autofluorescence. As shown in <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0134892#pone.0134892.s004" target="_blank">S4 Fig</a>, for foci with a maximum intensity on the line in the first fluorescent picture, the intensity along the line was used to determine whether a focus is stable (moves by no more than one pixel on at least 3 of the first 4 frames), or unstable (moves by more than one pixel or disappears). For other foci stability was determined by eye, using the pole to pole line as a position reference.</p

Generation times in the microchamber at 30°C.

<p>Generation times in the microchamber at 30°C.</p