Institute of Psychology, KU Leuven, Belgium; Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
Biol Psychol. 2020 Apr;152:107863. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2020.107863. Epub 2020 Feb 9.
Transcutaneous stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve (tVNS) has been proposed as a treatment for a spectrum of physical and psychological disorders. One of the proposed working mechanisms of tVNS is a modulatory effect on the locus coeruleus - noradrenaline (LC-NA) network. We tested this hypothesis in humans in a series of three studies: one focusing on high trait worriers, and two in healthy populations. In all three studies, we tested whether tVNS increases resting pupil diameter - as an index of LC-NA network activity. Additionally, we tested whether tVNS affects task performance and task-related pupil dilation during an Attentional Blink task. We found no evidence that tVNS increases pupil diameter or task-related pupil dilation in any of the tasks. No consistent effects of tVNS on performance on the attentional blink task were found. Overall, the results of these studies indicate that tVNS does not affect these behavioral and physiological indices of noradrenergic activity.
经皮刺激迷走神经耳支（tVNS）已被提议用于治疗一系列生理和心理障碍。tVNS 的一种拟议工作机制是对蓝斑-去甲肾上腺素（LC-NA）网络的调节作用。我们在一系列三项研究中对人类进行了这一假设的测试：一项研究集中在高特质焦虑者，另外两项研究集中在健康人群。在所有三项研究中，我们测试了 tVNS 是否会增加静息瞳孔直径——作为 LC-NA 网络活动的指标。此外，我们还测试了 tVNS 是否会影响注意瞬脱任务期间的任务表现和与任务相关的瞳孔扩张。我们没有发现 tVNS 会增加任何任务中的瞳孔直径或与任务相关的瞳孔扩张的证据。也没有发现 tVNS 对注意瞬脱任务表现有一致的影响。总的来说，这些研究的结果表明，tVNS 不会影响这些去甲肾上腺素能活动的行为和生理指标。
