Chen Jingxin, Ke Yufeng, Ni Guangjian, Ming Dong
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2024 Jul;2024:1-4. doi: 10.1109/EMBC53108.2024.10782958.
Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) offers an effective, non-invasive alternative to implantable vagus nerve stimulation and it is considered to be a promising cognitive modulation tool. However, at present, the effect of taVNS on working memory is not clear, Simultaneously, the potential pupillary responses stemming from taVNS require more empirical inquiry. Herein, we investigated the influence of taVNS on working memory capacity and its link to pupillary responses during the change detection task. A sham-controlled, randomized, crossover-designed experiment was applied to 16 participants. Within each session, participants received a Sham or Active taVNS stimulation for 12 minutes and then achieved 3 blocks of change detection task. Each trial exceeds for 5s. The pupil and behavior responses were recorded during the task. We hypothesized that Active taVNS can improve the performance of the change detection task and influence the pupil corresponding to different numbers of target stimuli. For the results, we observed no significant modulation of working memory capacity by taVNS but did note distinct alterations in pupillary response (mean amplitude and extremes) during specified intervals in the change detection task. These findings point to an underexplored avenue of research into the neural or psychological processes affected by taVNS and provides a new insight for taVNS to modulate working memory capacity.
经皮迷走神经刺激(taVNS)为植入式迷走神经刺激提供了一种有效、非侵入性的替代方法,被认为是一种有前景的认知调节工具。然而,目前taVNS对工作记忆的影响尚不清楚,同时,taVNS引发的潜在瞳孔反应需要更多实证研究。在此,我们研究了taVNS对工作记忆容量的影响及其在变化检测任务中与瞳孔反应的联系。对16名参与者进行了一项假对照、随机、交叉设计的实验。在每个实验环节中,参与者接受12分钟的假刺激或taVNS真刺激,然后完成3组变化检测任务。每个试验持续5秒。在任务过程中记录瞳孔和行为反应。我们假设taVNS真刺激可以提高变化检测任务的表现,并影响对应不同数量目标刺激的瞳孔反应。结果显示,我们未观察到taVNS对工作记忆容量有显著调节作用,但确实注意到在变化检测任务的特定时间段内,瞳孔反应(平均幅度和极值)有明显改变。这些发现指出了一条尚未充分探索的研究途径,即研究受taVNS影响的神经或心理过程,并为taVNS调节工作记忆容量提供了新的见解。
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2024-7