Positional nystagmus showing neutral points.

We encountered patients who had their static direction-changing positional nystagmus canceled at about 20-30 degrees yaw head rotation from the supine position. This nystagmus was also canceled when the head was rotated 180 degrees from this position. We call these head positions neutral points. At the neutral points, the cupula of the horizontal semicircular canal of the affected ear is positioned vertical to the gravitational plane and no deflection of the cupula occurs. The positional nystagmus observed (except the neutral points) was thought to occur due to a "heavy cupula" or "light cupula", which may be determined by the specific gravity of its endolymph. Copyright 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel