Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation boosts mood recovery after effort exertion.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Mood plays an important role in our life which is illustrated by the disruptive impact of aberrant mood states in depression. Although vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been shown to improve symptoms of depression, the exact mechanism is still elusive, and it is an open question whether non-invasive VNS could be used to swiftly and robustly improve mood.

Methods

Here, we investigated the effect of left- and right-sided transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS) v. a sham control condition on mood after the exertion of physical and cognitive effort in 82 healthy participants (randomized cross-over design) using linear mixed-effects and hierarchical Bayesian analyses of mood ratings.

Results

We found that 90 min of either left-sided or right-sided taVNS improved po

SUBMITTER: Ferstl M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9693679 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature