ArticleMolecular pain
Auricular vagus nerve stimulation enhances central serotonergic function and inhibits diabetic neuropathy development in Zucker fatty rats.
Article in Molecular pain. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of transauricular nerve stimulation on perioperative pain: a single-blind, analyser-masked, randomised controlled trial.British journal of anaesthesia · 2023Trial
- Reduced vagal tone in women with endometriosis and auricular vagus nerve stimulation as a potential therapeutic approach.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Analgesic effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on partial sciatic nerve ligation-induced neuropathic pain in mice via serotonergic pathways.Molecular brain · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous Vagal Nerve Stimulation for Gastrointestinal Disorders.Journal of translational gastroenterology · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Restores Cognitive Impairment in Morphine-Withdrawn Rats: Role of BDNF and Glial Cells in the Hippocampus.Addiction biology · 2025Article
- Vagus nerve stimulation for chronic pain management: Mechanisms and clinical advances.Journal of biological methods · 2025Review
- Analgesic Effect of Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation on Oxaliplatin-induced Peripheral Neuropathic Pain in a Rodent Model.Experimental neurobiology · 2024Article
- Anatomo-physiological basis and applied techniques of electrical neuromodulation in chronic pain.Journal of anesthesia, analgesia and critical care · 2024Review
- Diabetic Neuropathic Pain and Serotonin: What Is New in the Last 15 Years?Biomedicines · 2023Review
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation would be an alternative to implantable cervical vagus nerve stimulation in some situation.Journal of traditional Chinese medicine = Chung i tsa chih ying wen pan · 2023Article
- Importance of timing optimization for closed-loop applications of vagus nerve stimulation.Bioelectronic medicine · 2023Review
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in the treatment of disorders of consciousness: mechanisms and applications.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Review
- Peripheral Neuropathy Phenotyping in Rat Models of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Evaluating Uptake of the Neurodiab Guidelines and Identifying Future Directions.Diabetes & metabolism journal · 2022Review
- Transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation releases extrapineal melatonin and reduces thermal hypersensitivity in Zucker diabetic fatty rats.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- The serotonergic system dysfunction in diabetes mellitus.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2022Review
- Baroreceptor Modulation of the Cardiovascular System, Pain, Consciousness, and Cognition.Comprehensive Physiology · 2021Article
- Parametric characterization of the rat Hering-Breuer reflex evoked with implanted and non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation.Experimental neurology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Painful neuropathy is a frequent comorbidity in diabetes. Zucker diabetic fatty (fa/fa) rats develop type 2 diabetes spontaneously with aging and show nociceptive hypersensitivity at the age of 13 weeks. In preclinical and clinical studies, the treatment of diabetic neuropathy is challenging, but complementary medicine such as transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) appears beneficial to the relief of neuropathic pain. However, the mechanism behind the effectiveness of taVNS remains unclear. In this study, we show that daily 30-min taVNS (2/15 Hz, 2 mA) for consecutive 27 days effectively inhibited the development of nociceptive hypersensitivity in Zucker diabetic fatty rats as detected by thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia in hindpaw. We also demonstrated that this beneficial effect in nociceptive behavior is related to an elevated serotonin (5-HT) plasma concentration and an upregulated expression of 5-HT receptor type 1A (5-HT1AR) in hypothalamus. We conclude that daily 30-min taVNS sessions lessen diabetic neuropathy development by enhancing serotonergic function in genetically diabetes prone individuals. Perspective This article presents taVNS as a new approach to inhibit the development of diabetic neuropathy in genetically prone individuals. This approach could potentially help clinicians who seek to avoid the complication of neuropathic pain in diabetic patient or to relieve the pain if there was one.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.