Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation boosts mood recovery after effort exertion

Abstract

Background Mood plays an important role in our life which is illustrated by the disruptive impact of aberrant mood states in depression. Although vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been shown to improve symptoms of depression, the exact mechanism is still elusive, and it is an open question whether non-invasive VNS could be used to swiftly and robustly improve mood. Methods Here, we investigated the effect of left- and right-sided transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS) v. a sham control condition on mood after the exertion of physical and cognitive effort in 82 healthy participants (randomized cross-over design) using linear mixed-effects and hierarchical Bayesian analyses of mood ratings. Results We found that 90 min of either left-sided or right-sided taVNS improved positive mood [b = 5.11, 95% credible interval, CI (1.39–9.01), 9.6% improvement relative to the mood intercept, BF10 = 7.69, pLME = 0.017], yet only during the post-stimulation phase. Moreover, lower baseline scores of positive mood were associated with greater taVNS-induced improvements in motivation [r = −0.42, 95% CI (−0.58 to −0.21), BF10 = 249]. Conclusions We conclude that taVNS boosts mood after a prolonged period of effort exertion with concurrent stimulation and that acute motivational effects of taVNS are partly dependent on initial mood states. Collectively, our results show that taVNS may help quickly improve affect after a mood challenge, potentially by modulating interoceptive signals contributing to the reappraisal of effortful behavior. This suggests that taVNS could be a useful add-on to current behavioral therapies.

Vagus nerve stimulation attenuates acute kidney injury induced by hepatic ischemia/reperfusion injury in rats

“…Traditional VNS is always invasive and requires device implantation; therefore, the application of VNS is widely restricted. Auricular VNS, a non-invasive VNS, has been shown to obtain the similar effects as invasive VNS 35,36 . Considering these observations together, non-invasive VNS might be a prospective clinical treatment for hepatic I/R injury-induced AKI.…”

Therapeutic applications of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation with potential for application in neurodevelopmental or other pediatric disorders

“…Indeed, a range of beneficial taVNS effects have now been reported in a number of clinical trials on MDD patients ( 14 , 15 , 17 , 49 , 105 ). Recently, evidence from healthy populations also indicates that a prolonged period of effort exertion with concurrent taVNS in comparison to sham stimulation could boost mood recovery, indicating that taVNS may help improve affect after a mood challenge ( 66 ).…”

Vagus nerve stimulation increases stomach-brain coupling via a vagal afferent pathway

“…The stimulation intensity was set individually (possible range 0.1-5 mA) for each session until participants reported a mild pricking. We placed the stimulation electrode at the cymba conchae (taVNS) or the earlobe (sham) of the right ear (Ferstl et al, 2021;Frangos et al, 2015;Neuser et al, 2020;Teckentrup et al, 2020).…”

“…However, to better characterize the functional role of the gastric network, causal manipulations of stomach-brain axis signaling are necessary, a task that has so far remained elusive. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been shown to afferently increase activity in the NTS (Frangos et al, 2015;Sclocco et al, 2019;Teckentrup et al, 2021;Yakunina et al, 2017) and improve motivation (Neuser et al, 2020), memory (Giraudier et al, 2020;Jacobs et al, 2015;Vazquez-Oliver et al, 2020), and mood (Ferstl et al, 2021;Kraus et al, 2007). Vice versa, gastric motility was modulated by manipulations of an efferent vago-vagal pathway (Hong et al, 2019;Steidel et al, 2021;Teckentrup et al, 2020).…”