Vestibular compensation, the behavioral recovery that occurs following the removal of afferent input from one vestibular organ or nerve, is a useful experimental model of lesion-induced plasticity in the central nervous system. While the recovery of resting activity in the vestibular nuclei ipsilateral to the lesioned side is involved in the process of vestibular compensation, the neuropharmacological mechanisms underlying neuronal recovery are unknown.
This review focuses on the pharmacological basis of vestibular compensation to clarify the changes in the neurochemical or synaptic organization of the vestibular nuclei and discusses the neurochemical mechanisms underlying the development of vestibular compensation.