Mercante Beniamina, Enrico Paolo, Deriu Franca
Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
AOU Sassari, Unit of Endocrinology, Nutritional and Metabolic Disorders, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
Biomedicines. 2023 Aug 27;11(9):2392. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines11092392.
Vast scientific effort in recent years have been focused on the search for effective and safe treatments for cognitive decline. In this regard, non-invasive neuromodulation has gained increasing attention for its reported effectiveness in promoting the recovery of multiple cognitive domains after central nervous system damage. In this short review, we discuss the available evidence supporting a possible cognitive effect of trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS). In particular, we ask that, while TNS has been widely and successfully used in the treatment of various neuropsychiatric conditions, as far as research in the cognitive field is concerned, where does TNS stand? The trigeminal nerve is the largest cranial nerve, conveying the sensory information from the face to the trigeminal sensory nuclei, and from there to the thalamus and up to the somatosensory cortex. On these bases, a bottom-up mechanism has been proposed, positing that TNS-induced modulation of the brainstem noradrenergic system may affect the function of the brain networks involved in cognition. Nevertheless, despite the promising theories, to date, the use of TNS for cognitive empowering and/or cognitive decline treatment has several challenges ahead of it, mainly due to little uniformity of the stimulation protocols. However, as the field continues to grow, standardization of practice will allow for data comparisons across studies, leading to optimized protocols targeting specific brain circuitries, which may, in turn, influence cognition in a designed manner.
近年来，大量的科学研究致力于寻找有效且安全的认知衰退治疗方法。在这方面，非侵入性神经调节因其在促进中枢神经系统损伤后多个认知领域恢复方面的有效性而受到越来越多的关注。在这篇简短的综述中，我们讨论了支持三叉神经刺激（TNS）可能具有认知效应的现有证据。特别是，我们想问，尽管TNS已被广泛且成功地用于治疗各种神经精神疾病，但就认知领域的研究而言，TNS处于什么地位？三叉神经是最大的颅神经，它将面部的感觉信息传递到三叉神经感觉核，再从那里传递到丘脑，直至躯体感觉皮层。基于这些，有人提出了一种自下而上的机制，认为TNS对脑干去甲肾上腺素能系统的调节可能会影响参与认知的脑网络功能。然而，尽管有这些有前景的理论，但迄今为止，将TNS用于增强认知能力和/或治疗认知衰退仍面临一些挑战，主要是由于刺激方案缺乏一致性。不过，随着该领域的不断发展，实践的标准化将允许对不同研究的数据进行比较，从而产生针对特定脑回路的优化方案，这反过来可能会以一种有设计性的方式影响认知。
