ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2023
Phasic, Event-Related Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Modifies Behavioral, Pupillary, and Low-Frequency Oscillatory Power Responses.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation may improve cognitive deficits in neuropsychiatric diseases-a systematic review.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation during short-term motor practice drives cortical plasticity without behavioural improvement.The Journal of physiology · 2026Trial
- The impact of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation on anterior cingulate cortex activity in a cognitive control task.Psychophysiology · 2025Trial
- Magnetoencephalography in human neuroscience research: planning, piloting, implementation and quality assurance.Nature protocols · 2026Review
- 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
- No significant modulation of pressure pain sensitivity and cardioception after transauricular vagal nerve stimulation.Pain reports · 2026Article
- Neurophysiological correlates of taVNS-mediated cognitive enhancement.Clinical neurophysiology practice · 2026Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation: mechanisms, applications, and research progress.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Bilateral transcutaneous auricular nerve stimulation promotes motor function recovery after stroke: A randomized controlled trial.Therapeutic advances in neurological disorders · 2026Article
- Neuromodulation of Cortical Targets in Freezing of Gait.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Review
- Modulation of response inhibition with event-related atVNS showed EEG but no behavioral effects.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Failure modes and mitigations for Bayesian optimization of neuromodulation parameters.Journal of neural engineering · 2025Review
- Ready for translation: non-invasive auricular vagus nerve stimulation inhibits psychophysiological indices of stimulus-specific fear and facilitates responding to repeated exposure in phobic individuals.Translational psychiatry · 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
- taVNS as a potential countermeasure for neurocognitive decline in microgravity.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in healthy individuals, stroke, and Parkinson's disease: a narrative review of safety, parameters, and efficacy.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Review
- Effects of stimulation site and protocol on autonomic responses to auricular vagus nerve stimulation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Impact of Stimulation Duration in taVNS-Exploring Multiple Physiological and Cognitive Outcomes.Brain sciences · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been proposed to activate the locus ceruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NA) system. However, previous studies failed to find consistent modulatory effects of taVNS on LC-NA biomarkers. Previous studies suggest that phasic taVNS may be capable of modulating LC-NA biomarkers such as pupil dilation and alpha oscillations. However, it is unclear whether these effects extend beyond pure sensory vagal nerve responses. Critically, the potential of the pupillary light reflex as an additional taVNS biomarker has not been explored so far. Here, we applied phasic active and sham taVNS in 29 subjects (16 female, 13 male) while they performed an emotional Stroop task (EST) and a passive pupil light reflex task (PLRT). We recorded pupil size and brain activity dynamics using a combined Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and pupillometry design. Our results show that phasic taVNS significantly increased pupil dilation and performance during the EST. During the PLRT, active taVNS reduced and delayed pupil constriction. In the MEG, taVNS increased frontal-midline theta and alpha power during the EST, whereas occipital alpha power was reduced during both the EST and PLRT. Our findings provide evidence that phasic taVNS systematically modulates behavioral, pupillary, and electrophysiological parameters of LC-NA activity during cognitive processing. Moreover, we demonstrate for the first time that the pupillary light reflex can be used as a simple and effective proxy of taVNS efficacy. These findings have important implications for the development of noninvasive neuromodulation interventions for various cognitive and clinical applications.
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