ArticleJournal of translational medicine2021
Different modulation effects of 1 Hz and 20 Hz transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on the functional connectivity of the periaqueductal gray in patients with migraine.
Article in Journal of translational medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06277063 (Noninvasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation for the Prevention and Treatment of Primary Headache), which is not on this map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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.
Noninvasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation for the Prevention and Treatment of Primary Headache: a Single-arm Single-center Clinical Trial.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- [Clinical efficacy of auricular vagus nerve stimulation in the treatment of chronic and acute pain : A systematic review].Schmerz (Berlin, Germany) · 2024Pooled it
- Effects of vagal nerve stimulation on pain frequency and intensity in chronic migraine in adults: A randomized controlled trial.Physiological reports · 2026Trial
- Predicting treatment response to transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in patients with insomnia: resting-state functional connectivity based multivoxel pattern analysis.BMC psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Transcutaneous auricular nerve stimulation modulates the functional connectivity of the descending pain modulation system and reward network in patients with chronic low back pain.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Trial
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Visually Induced Motion Sickness: An eLORETA Study.Brain topography · 2024Trial
- A review of descending pain modulation in humans.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- High-frequency taVNS modulates olfaction-related brain activity in patients with subjective cognitive decline.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Research Progress of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Chronic Pain Management: A Narrative Review.Journal of pain research · 2026Review
- Acute taVNS modulates lateralized hypoactivity in the right cerebral hemisphere in individuals with subjective cognitive decline.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- The role of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in chronic pain: from neurobiological mechanisms to clinical applications.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Article
- 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
- Therapeutic observation of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation for chronic migraine in pediatric patients: a case report.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Clinical Efficacy of Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation in the Treatment of Chronic and Acute Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Pain and therapy · 2024Review
- Gamma-aminobutyric acid and glutamate/glutamine levels in the dentate nucleus and periaqueductal gray in new daily persistent headache: a magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.The journal of headache and pain · 2024Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation enhances short-latency afferent inhibition via central cholinergic system activation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of myoarthropatic symptoms in patients with craniomandibular dysfunction - a protocol for a randomized and controlled pilot trial.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2024Article
- Contralateral acupuncture for migraine without aura: a randomized trial protocol with multimodal MRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Non-invasive neuromodulation: an emerging intervention for visceral pain in gastrointestinal disorders.Bioelectronic medicine · 2023Review
- Altered functional brain network patterns in patients with migraine without aura after transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation.Scientific reports · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundA growing body of evidence suggests that transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) may relieve symptoms of migraineurs. Frequency is one of the key stimulation parameters. The aim of this study is to investigate the modulation effect of taVNS frequency on the descending pain modulation system (DPMS) in patients with migraine.
methodsTwenty-four episodic migraineurs without aura (21 females) were recruited for the single-blind, crossover, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. Each participant attended two separate fMRI scan sessions, one for 1 Hz and another for 20 Hz taVNS, in a random order. Seed-based functional connectivity analysis was applied using the ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (PAG) as the region of interest.
resultsCompared with the pre-taVNS resting state, continuous 1 Hz taVNS (during) produced a significant increase in functional connectivity between the PAG and the bilateral middle cingulate cortex (MCC), right precuneus, left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and left cuneus. Compared with 20 Hz taVNS, 1 Hz taVNS produced greater PAG connectivity increases with the MCC, right precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, left insula, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). A significant negative correlation was observed between the number of migraine attacks in the previous 4 weeks and the PAG-MCC functional connectivity in the pre-taVNS resting-state before 1 Hz taVNS.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that taVNS with different frequencies may produce different modulation effects on the descending pain modulation system, demonstrating the important role of stimulation frequency in taVNS treatment.
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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.