Research Group Health Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Research Group Health Psychology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Cortex. 2023 Feb;159:233-253. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2022.11.012. Epub 2022 Dec 17.
Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a neurostimulatory technique hypothesised to enhance central noradrenaline. Currently, there is scarce evidence in support of a noradrenergic mechanism of taVNS and limited knowledge on its stimulation parameters (i.e., intensity and pulse width). Therefore, the present study aimed to test whether taVNS enhances pupil dilation, a noradrenergic biomarker, as a function of stimulation parameters. Forty-nine participants received sham (i.e., left ear earlobe) and taVNS (i.e., left ear cymba concha) stimulation in two separate sessions, in a counterbalanced order. We administered short bursts (5s) of seven stimulation settings varying as a function of pulse width and intensity and measured pupil size in parallel. Each stimulation setting was administered sixteen times in separate blocks. We expected short bursts of stimulation to elicit phasic noradrenergic activity as indexed by event-related pupil dilation and event-related temporal derivative. We hypothesised higher stimulation settings, quantified as the total charge per pulse (pulse width x intensity), to drive greater event-related pupil dilation and temporal derivative in the taVNS compared to sham condition. Specifically, we expected stimulation settings in the taVNS condition to be associated with a linear increase in event-related pupil dilation and temporal derivative. We found stimulation settings to linearly increase both pupil measures. In line with our hypothesis, the observed dose-dependent effect was stronger in the taVNS condition. We also found taVNS to elicit more intense and unpleasant sensations than sham stimulation. These results support the hypothesis of a noradrenergic mechanism of taVNS. However, future studies should disentangle whether stimulation elicited sensations mediate the effect of taVNS on evoked pupil dilation.
经皮耳迷走神经刺激(taVNS)是一种神经刺激技术,假设可以增强中枢去甲肾上腺素。目前,支持 taVNS 的去甲肾上腺素能机制的证据很少,对其刺激参数(即强度和脉冲宽度)的了解也有限。因此,本研究旨在测试 taVNS 是否可以增强瞳孔扩张作为刺激参数的功能,这是一种去甲肾上腺素生物标志物。49 名参与者在两个单独的会话中以平衡的方式分别接受了假(即左耳耳垂)和 taVNS(即左耳 concha cymba)刺激。我们给予了七种刺激设置的短爆发(5s),这些设置是根据脉冲宽度和强度的函数而变化的,并同时测量了瞳孔大小。每个刺激设置在单独的块中进行了十六次。我们预计短爆发刺激会引起与事件相关的瞳孔扩张和事件相关的时间导数相关的阶段性去甲肾上腺素能活动。我们假设较高的刺激设置,用每个脉冲的总电荷量(脉冲宽度 x 强度)来量化,与假刺激相比,在 taVNS 中会引起更大的与事件相关的瞳孔扩张和时间导数。具体而言,我们预计 taVNS 条件下的刺激设置与与事件相关的瞳孔扩张和时间导数的线性增加有关。我们发现刺激设置会使这两种瞳孔测量都呈线性增加。与我们的假设一致,在 taVNS 条件下观察到的剂量依赖性效应更强。我们还发现 taVNS 引起的感觉比假刺激更强烈和不愉快。这些结果支持 taVNS 的去甲肾上腺素能机制的假设。然而,未来的研究应该阐明刺激引起的感觉是否介导了 taVNS 对诱发的瞳孔扩张的影响。
Psychophysiology. 2025-2