ReviewFrontiers in aging neuroscience2023
Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) applications in cognitive aging: a review and commentary.
Review in Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation may improve cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric diseases-a systematic review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Acupuncture treatment of vascular cognitive impairment through peripheral nerve stimulation pathway: a scoping review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Pooled it
- Research evidence on the management of the cognitive impairment component of the post-COVID condition: a qualitative systematic review.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2024Pooled it
- Influence of a 2-week transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on memory: findings from a randomized placebo controlled trial in non-clinical adults.Clinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society · 2024Trial
- A Multiscale Spatiotemporal Causal Mapping Algorithm for Revealing Neural Network Mechanisms of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Vagus nerve stimulation alters task-evoked pupillary responses in older but not younger adults: A single-blind active sham-controlled crossover trial.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on the improvement of cognitive function in older patients with schizophrenia: A randomised controlled study.General psychiatry · 2026Article
- Balancing the autonomic scale: the promise of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in combating cardiovascular diseases.Frontiers in physiology · 2026Review
- Therapeutic potential of vagus nerve stimulation in neurodegenerative diseases: research progress and mechanisms.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Article
- Effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on associative memory, event-related potential P300 and P600: a single-blind pilot experiment on healthy adults.Experimental brain research · 2025Article
- Spaceflight exposome/microgravity effects on the psychoimmunoneuroendocrine system.NPJ microgravity · 2025Review
- Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Enhances Emotional Processing and Long-Term Recognition Memory: Electrophysiological Evidence Across Two Studies.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation can modulate fronto-parietal brain networks.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Improvement of Vascular Cognitive Impairment.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2024Review
- Therapeutic potential of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in cognitive impairment: insights from preclinical and clinical studies.Frontiers in neurologyReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Differentiating healthy from pathological aging trajectories is extremely timely, as the global population faces an inversion where older adults will soon outnumber younger 5:1. Many cognitive functions (e.g., memory, executive functions, and processing speed) decline with age, a process that can begin as early as midlife, and which predicts subsequent diagnosis with dementia. Although dementia is a devastating and costly diagnosis, there remains limited evidence for medications, therapies, and devices that improve cognition or attenuate the transition into dementia. There is an urgent need to intervene early in neurodegenerative processes leading to dementia (e.g., depression and mild cognitive impairment). In this targeted review and commentary, we highlight transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) as a neurostimulation method with unique opportunities for applications in diseases of aging, reviewing recent literature, feasibility of use with remote data collection methods/telehealth, as well as limitations and conflicts in the literature. In particular, small sample sizes, uneven age distributions of participants, lack of standardized protocols, and oversampling of non-representative groups (e.g., older adults with no comorbid diagnoses) limit our understanding of the potential of this method. We offer recommendations for how to improve representativeness, statistical power, and generalizability of tVNS research by integrating remote data collection techniques.
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.