Safety and preliminary efficacy of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on chronic knee pain: A pilot trial.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) may be an innovative treatment for symptoms of knee osteoarthritis (OA) due to possible shared pathological mechanisms between diminished parasympathetic function, central pain mechanisms, and knee pain. Thus, we sought to test the safety and preliminary efficacy of tVNS in people with knee OA.

Design

A pilot trial in which participants received a 60-min tVNS was conducted. At baseline, immediately after, and 15 ​min after tVNS, we assessed knee pain, pressure pain threshold (PPT), temporal summation (TS), conditioned pain modulation (CPM), and high-frequency power of heart rate variability (HF). We examined the extent to which these outcome measures changed after tVNS using

SUBMITTER: Aoyagi K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11647485 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature