Herein, bilaterally or unilaterally absent oVEMP responses were observed in 21 % of patients in the migraine group, while absent cVEMP responses were found in 10.5 % of patients in the migraine group. Several previous reports showed absent oVEMP responses in the migraine group (53.3 %) and VM group (28 %), whereas absent cVEMP responses were detected in 8 % of VM patients [14, 16]. Similar to previous studies, a high unresponsive rate of oVEMP in migraineurs was observed in our study, although the difference did not reach statistical significance. These findings also suggest defective oVEMP pathways in migraineurs.