Research Group Health Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Laboratory for Biological Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Psychophysiology. 2021 Oct;58(10):e13885. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13885. Epub 2021 Jul 10.
This study investigated whether transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) enhances reversal learning and augments noradrenergic biomarkers (i.e., pupil size, cortisol, and salivary alpha-amylase [sAA]). We also explored the effect of taVNS on respiratory rate and cardiac vagal activity (CVA). Seventy-one participants received stimulation of either the cymba concha (taVNS) or the earlobe (sham) of the left ear. After learning a series of cue-outcome associations, the stimulation was applied before and throughout a reversal phase in which cue-outcome associations were changed for some (reversal), but not for other (distractor) cues. Tonic pupil size, salivary cortisol, sAA, respiratory rate, and CVA were assessed at different time points. Contrary to our hypothesis, taVNS was not associated with an overall improvement in performance on the reversal task. Compared to sham, the taVNS group performed worse for distractor than reversal cues. taVNS did not increase tonic pupil size and sAA. Only post hoc analyses indicated that the cortisol decline was steeper in the sham compared to the taVNS group. Exploratory analyses showed that taVNS decreased respiratory rate but did not affect CVA. The weak and unexpected effects found in this study might relate to the lack of parameters optimization for taVNS and invite to further investigate the effect of taVNS on cortisol and respiratory rate.
本研究旨在探讨经皮耳迷走神经刺激(taVNS)是否能增强反转学习,并增强去甲肾上腺素能生物标志物(即瞳孔大小、皮质醇和唾液α-淀粉酶[sAA])。我们还探讨了 taVNS 对呼吸频率和心脏迷走神经活动(CVA)的影响。71 名参与者接受了左耳的 cymba concha(taVNS)或耳垂(假刺激)的刺激。在学习了一系列线索-结果关联后,在一些线索(反转)而不是其他线索(干扰)的结果关联发生变化的反转阶段之前和期间施加刺激。在不同时间点评估了瞳孔大小、唾液皮质醇、sAA、呼吸频率和 CVA 的紧张度。与我们的假设相反,taVNS 与反转任务表现的整体改善无关。与假刺激相比,taVNS 组对干扰线索的表现不如反转线索。taVNS 并没有增加紧张的瞳孔大小和 sAA。仅事后分析表明,与 taVNS 组相比,假刺激组的皮质醇下降更为陡峭。探索性分析表明,taVNS 降低了呼吸频率,但对 CVA 没有影响。本研究中发现的微弱和意外的效果可能与 taVNS 参数优化不足有关,并邀请进一步研究 taVNS 对皮质醇和呼吸率的影响。
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