Role of Vestibular System in Spatial Representation and Effect of Its Lesions on Cognitive Functions

A prevalent but neglected symptom of vestibular disorder is experience of difficulties in cognitive skills, such as short term memory, concentration, calculation, and reading. This assumption that cognitive and emotional symptoms do not specifically result from vestibular injures may cause some physicians to ignore such symptoms among vestibular patients or even misdiagnose vestibular injury when such symptoms are primary indicators of disease. Vestibular information has an important role in maintaining accurate spatial awareness. In brain, head direction and self-motion information combine to define Self-location. The aim of the present review article was evaluating vestibular system role in spatial representation as one of the cognitive functions and illuminating cognitive effects of vestibular disorder and moreover scientific attending to cognitive-vestibular interaction.
Material and we studied the previous literature on the relationship between vestibular system and spatial representation and effects of vestibular injury on ability to performing specific cognitive functions by dual tasks. Articles in this area published in GoogleScholar, Ovid, PubMed and Sciencedirect databases were searched using vestibular system, spatial representation, hippocampus, cognitive dysfunction, and dual tasks keywords in publication reported between 1990-2017.
Cognitive deficiencies such as poor concentration and reduced short term memory were frequently seen in vestibular disorders. Indeed, vestibular signals are involved in personal and extra personal perception, sensations related to the whole body position and motion in space, and the displacement of the environment relative to the person.