Stopped: It never enrolled any patients
Neurogenic orthostatic hypotension occurs in a significant number of people and has no effective treatment. Neurogenic orthostatic hypotension is associated with intermittent episodes of fainting which can be debilitating for the patients. Using sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation, an oscillating current between the two ears, collaborators have discovered an effective technique to habituate anesthetized rats that develop vasovagal responses. The investigators propose to determine whether a similar use of sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation can eliminate or alleviate neurogenic orthostatic hypotension and the associated syncope in susceptible human subjects. If so, then sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation, which is safe and widely used to study muscle sympathetic nerve activity, can be used in humans, who have a history of syncope and a positive tilt test to habituate vasovagal responses. Habituation will be accomplished using repetitive periods of sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation in two 30min sessions three times/week for 2 weeks. Similar 1 hour sessions are routinely used by others when activating muscle sympathetic nerve activity with sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation without harm to the subjects. The 30 min periods were chosen because this was effective in producing habituation of vasovagal responses. The habituating stimulus will be given by applying paste electrodes over the mastoid processes and plugging the leads into a battery driven-stimulus box, which when activated by a switch, will provide a very low frequency bipolar, Ā± 2 mA, 0.025 Hz oscillating current sinusoidal galvanic vestibular stimulation between the mastoids. Subjects will be seated during the stimulation. The onset and end of the stimulation period will be denoted by tones, and the subjects will be free to watch television, read, or listen to music while they are being stimulated. The effectiveness of the habituation will be determined in several ways: 1) Subjects will keep a history of the number of episodes of syncope in the inter-test intervals. 2) They will have tilt tests at the beginning and end of habituation. 3) Their blood pressure and heart rate will be recorded and the investigators will determine if there is a loss of low frequency (0.025 Hz) oscillations, which the investigators have found in animal models to disappear when the animals are habituated. 4) Habituation should be accompanied by an increase in heart rate to counteract the fall in blood pressure.
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Net change in blood pressure during head-up tilt
Timeframe: 1 week prior vs 1 week after treatment
Net change in heart rate during head-up tilt
Timeframe: 1 week prior vs 1 week after treatment