ArticleNature communications2021
Graded recruitment of pupil-linked neuromodulation by parametric stimulation of the vagus nerve.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06294509 (Feasibility and Effects of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Timings in a Sensorimotor Task), which is not on this map. Cited by 60 papers.
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.
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.
Feasibility and Effects of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Timings in a Sensorimotor Task
Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed, 116 citations in OpenAlex.
- Improving Sleep Quality, Daytime Sleepiness, and Cognitive Function in Patients with Dementia by Therapeutic Exercise and NESA Neuromodulation: A Multicenter Clinical Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Trial
- Vagal nerve stimulation induces vascular oscillations and enhances long-term learning.iScience · 2026Article
- Modality-general sensitivity of pupil responses to regularity violations.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Auricular vagus nerve stimulation drives analgesia via an auricle-brain axis in a mouse model of neuropathic pain.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Pulsed taVNS-Elicited Pupil Dilation: Effects of Intermixed Stimulation, Sham Location, and Respiratory Phase.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Effects of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation on pupil dilation are dependent on sensory matching.iScience · 2026Article
- Phasic and tonic arousal distinctly shape human decision bias.Communications biology · 2026Article
- No significant modulation of pressure pain sensitivity and cardioception after transauricular vagal nerve stimulation.Pain reports · 2026Article
- No Effect of Continuous Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation on the P3, the P600, or Physiological Markers of Noradrenergic Activity in an Oddball and Sentence Comprehension Task.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Sound-evoked pupil dilation quantifies misophonic symptoms.PloS one · 2026Article
- Pupillary dynamics during hands-off L2 driving and transitions of control under high cognitive load.PloS one · 2026Article
- Cortical potentials evoked by stimulation of cervical vagus vs. auricular nerve: a comparative, parametric study in nonhuman primates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Catecholamines reduce choice history biases in perceptual decision making.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- The Interplay Between Tonic and Phasic Pupil Activity and Cognitive Flexibility and Stability.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Enhances Emotional Processing and Long-Term Recognition Memory: Electrophysiological Evidence Across Two Studies.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Three Hundred Hertz Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (taVNS) Impacts Pupil Size Non-Linearly as a Function of Intensity.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Vagus nerve stimulation modulates information representation of sustained activity in layer specific manner in the rat auditory cortex.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2025Article
- The effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in epilepsy comorbid with migraine on the EEG power spectrum: a randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Article
- Effects of cervical transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (ctVNS) on military cognitive performance during sleep deprivation.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- What can ANS signals tell us about motor learning? An implication for better assessment of cognitive contribution to motor learning.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is thought to affect neural activity by recruiting brain-wide release of neuromodulators. VNS is used in treatment-resistant epilepsy, and is increasingly being explored for other disorders, such as depression, and as a cognitive enhancer. However, the promise of VNS is only partially fulfilled due to a lack of mechanistic understanding of the transfer function between stimulation parameters and neuromodulatory response, together with a lack of biosensors for assaying stimulation efficacy in real time. We here develop an approach to VNS in head-fixed mice on a treadmill and show that pupil dilation is a reliable and convenient biosensor for VNS-evoked cortical neuromodulation. In an 'optimal' zone of stimulation parameters, current leakage and off-target effects are minimized and the extent of pupil dilation tracks VNS-evoked basal-forebrain cholinergic axon activity in neocortex. Thus, pupil dilation is a sensitive readout of the moment-by-moment, titratable effects of VNS on brain state.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.