OPINION article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Neuro-Otology
Obituary: Paul Smith (1960 -2025)
The University of Sydney, Darlington, Australia
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Abstract
As I have noted, a major part of his medal-winning PhD was a review of the literature on vestibular compensation. This was comprehensive, critical but fair and he used his skill in reviewing large literatures in writing major reviews throughout his career. These have introduced many people to the vestibular system and its very widespread importance not just for oculomotor and postural control but for cognition and memory and the role of vestibular input to the basal ganglia, including its role in Parkinson's Disease. His work had high impact: Google Scholar (31.12.2025) reports that he has had 15,941 citations with an H factor of 63. He has written 4 books and over 360 peer reviewed papers. He was a member of the editorial boards of a very large number of journals. • galvanic stimulation for vestibular rehabilitation (4)• the neural basis of tinnitus -neurochemistry and electrophysiology of tinnitus (5)• explore/evaluate therapeutic strategies for tinnitus (6)• vestibular-hippocampal function (spatial awareness, cognition, memory) (7-9), his most cited paper concerns the fact that vestibular loss causes hippocampal atrophy and impaired spatial memory (10) •
Summary
Keywords
Alzheimer's disease, Hippocampus, Parkinson's disease, Tinnitus, vestibular compensation
Received
19 January 2026
Accepted
03 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Curthoys. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Ian S Curthoys
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