Evidence map›Paper›PMID 32733306›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in psychology2020

Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) Improves High-Confidence Recognition Memory but Not Emotional Word Processing.

Manon Giraudier, Carlos Ventura-Bort, Mathias Weymar

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
43citing papers in PubMed, 2 pooled it
3.2field-weighted citation impact, top 8% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

43 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 77 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Manon GiraudierDepartment of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Carlos Ventura-BortDepartment of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
Mathias WeymarDepartment of Biological Psychology and Affective Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
University of Potsdam · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Previous clinical research found that invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) enhanced word recognition memory in epileptic patients, an effect assumed to be related to the activation of brainstem arousal systems. In this study, we applied non-invasive transcutaneous auricular VNS (tVNS) to replicate and extend the previous work. Using a single-blind, randomized, between-subject design, 60 healthy volunteers received active or sham stimulation during a lexical decision task, in which emotional and neutral stimuli were classified as words or non-words. In a subsequent recognition memory task (1 day after stimulation), participants' memory performance on these words and their subjective memory confidence were tested. Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) levels, a putative indirect measure of central noradrenergic activation, were also measured before and after stimulation. During encoding, pleasant words were more accurately detected than neutral and unpleasant words. However, no tVNS effects were observed on task performance or on overall sAA level changes. tVNS also did not modulate overall recognition memory, which was particularly enhanced for pleasant emotional words. However, when hit rates were split based on confidence ratings reflecting familiarity- and recollection-based memory, higher recollection-based memory performance (irrespective of emotional category) was observed during active stimulation than during sham stimulation. To summarize, we replicated prior findings of enhanced processing and memory for emotional (pleasant) words. Whereas tVNS showed no effects on word processing, subtle effects on recollection-based memory performance emerged, which may indicate that tVNS facilitates hippocampus-mediated consolidation processes.

Indexed as

confidenceemotionepisodic memoryrecognitionrecollectionsalivary alpha-amylasetranscutaneous vagus nerve stimulationwords

Identifiers

PMID32733306
PMCPMC7363946
OpenAlexW3029209365

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

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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.