ArticleNeurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology2024
Long-term effects of vagus nerve stimulation therapy on cognitive functioning in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy.
Article in Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Alzheimer's Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment: Current Evidence and Future Directions.NeuroSci · 2026Review
- Associations between peripheral nerve stimulation and cognitive performance: insights from healthy individuals and various disease pathologies.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2025Review
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4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDespite the increasing use of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) for drug-resistant epilepsy, its impact on cognitive functioning remains insufficiently investigated.
objectiveWe aimed to comprehensively assess changes in cognition after long-term VNS therapy in a prospective sample of adults with epilepsy.
methodsBetween December 2019 and March 2023, patients scheduled for VNS implantation were invited for neuropsychological assessment, including tests of executive functions, working and short-term memory (recall of a verbal logical story and the Rey-Osterrieth complex figure (ROCF)), and social cognition. Participants were re-evaluated after a year of VNS therapy and the pre- and postoperative scores were compared by means of the Student's t or Wilcoxon's signed rank tests for paired samples. Patients available only after a longer follow-up (more than 24 months) were also re-examined and included in a secondary analysis.
resultsThe study included 28 PWE (16, 57.1% female, average age 33.7 ± 10.0 years). Twenty-two PWE followed-up at 14.5 ± 4.8 months had worse categorical verbal fluency than preoperatively (t = 2.613, p = 0.016). After including patients with long follow-up (n = 28, 21.6 ± 11.4 months), the group scored better on the delayed recall of the ROCF (17.09 ± 8.84 to 20.65 ± 8.32 points, t(22) = - 2.618, p = 0.016) and the Happé strange stories test (5.0 ± 2.6 to 6.1 ± 2.1 points, t(14) = - 3.281, p = 0.005). No significant changes were observed in other cognitive domains (p > 0.05).
conclusionWe suggest improvements in a task of social cognition and short-term visual memory after longer use of VNS therapy. Such findings should be confirmed in larger trials after controlling for changes in ictal or interictal activity.
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