Gurel Nil Z, Gazi Asim H, Scott Kristine L, Wittbrodt Matthew T, Shah Amit J, Vaccarino Viola, Bremner J Douglas, Inan Omer T
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA.
AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2020 Mar 4;2019:1061-1070. eCollection 2019.
Noninvasive vagal nerve stimulation (n-VNS) devices have the potential for widespread applicability in improving the well-being of patients with stress-related psychiatric disorders. n-VNS devices are known to affect physiological signals, and, recently, they have been employed in various protocols involving both acute and longitudinal applications. However, questions regarding response time, "dosage," or optimal treatment paradigms remain open. Prior work evaluated noninvasively obtained biomarkers that quantify the stimulation efficacy based on the changes in autonomic tone in a randomized double-blind study. In this work, we extend the state-of-the-art by investigating the onset of action for n-VNS in these same physiological biomarkers through a three-day clinical trial, including 233 administrations on 24 human participants, with and without immediately preceding acute traumatic stress. Determining n-VNS latency serves as a substantial step toward optimizing stimulation delivery with higher temporal resolution for personalized neuromodulation.
非侵入性迷走神经刺激（n-VNS）设备在改善与压力相关的精神疾病患者的健康状况方面具有广泛应用的潜力。已知n-VNS设备会影响生理信号，最近，它们已被用于各种涉及急性和长期应用的方案中。然而，关于反应时间、“剂量”或最佳治疗模式的问题仍然悬而未决。先前的研究在一项随机双盲研究中评估了基于自主神经张力变化来量化刺激效果的非侵入性获得的生物标志物。在这项研究中，我们通过一项为期三天的临床试验，对24名人类参与者进行了233次给药，包括有无紧接急性创伤性应激的情况，通过研究这些相同生理生物标志物中n-VNS的起效时间，扩展了现有技术水平。确定n-VNS潜伏期是朝着以更高时间分辨率优化刺激传递以实现个性化神经调节迈出的重要一步。
