ReviewFocus (American Psychiatric Publishing)2022
The Future Is Noninvasive: A Brief Review of the Evolution and Clinical Utility of Vagus Nerve Stimulation.
Review in Focus (American Psychiatric Publishing), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 3 of them syntheses 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation in the Management of Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Systematic Review of Advances in Animal Research and Clinical Applications.Current Alzheimer research · 2026Pooled it
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Movement Disorders, from Principles to a Systematic Review of Evidence.Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society · 2025Pooled it
- Two decades of vagus nerve stimulation for stroke: a bibliometric analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Investigation of the Effectiveness of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (taVNS) and Vestibular Rehabilitation in Patients with Unilateral Vestibular Hypofunction.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Trial
- A Review of Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Disease: Comprehensive Theory and Evidence for Mechanisms of Action.Comprehensive physiology · 2026Review
- The vagus nerve as a neurovisceral interface: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation: mechanisms, applications, and research progress.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Balancing the autonomic scale: the promise of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in combating cardiovascular diseases.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Review
- Non-invasive neuromodulation for drug-resistant epilepsy: a contemporary structured review of mechanisms, clinical evidence and future directions.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Review
- Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in breast cancer: a neuroimmune model to improve quality of life.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Treating Emotional Dysregulation and Inflammation in Common Neuropsychiatric Disorders.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Non-Invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Cluster Headache: A Clinical Practice Guideline.Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain · 2025Review
- The physiology, anatomy and stimulation of the vagus nerve in epilepsy.The Journal of physiology · 2025Review
- Neuromodulation guide for the non-neuromodulator clinician: What it is and how it can benefit patients?Biomolecules & biomedicine · 2025Review
- Overcoming Challenges in Interdisciplinary Collaboration Between Human and Veterinary Medicine.Veterinary sciences · 2024Article
- The immunomodulatory effect of oral NaHCOJournal of neuroinflammation · 2024Article
- Mechanisms of vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders: a focus on microglia and neuroinflammation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Review
- State- and frequency-dependence in autonomic rebalance mediated by intradermal auricular electroacupuncture stimulation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Hydrogels in wearable neural interfaces.Med-X · 2024Review
- Beyond the primary outcome: Why the RECOVER trial for vagus nerve stimulation matters in treatment-resistant depression.Brain stimulationArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a form of neuromodulation that stimulates the vagus nerve. VNS had been suggested as an intervention in the late 1800s and was rediscovered in the late 1980s as a promising treatment for refractory epilepsy. Since then, VNS has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of epilepsy, morbid obesity, and treatment-resistant depression. Unfortunately, VNS is underutilized, as it is costly to implant and often only suggested when all other treatment options have been exhausted. Discovery of a noninvasive method of VNS known as transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS), which activates the vagus through stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, has reignited excitement around VNS. taVNS has immense potential as a safe, at-home, wearable treatment for various neuropsychiatric disorders. Major strides are being made in both invasive and noninvasive VNS that aim to make this technology more accessible to patients who would find benefit, including the ongoing RECOVER trial, a randomized controlled trial in up to 1,000 individuals to further evaluate the efficacy of VNS for treatment-resistant depression. In this brief review, we first discuss the early history of VNS; then its clinical utility in FDA-approved indications; and, finally, noninvasive VNS.
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.