Recent advance in central nervous regulatory mechanism of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in improving cognitive function / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a neuromodulation technique that achieves therapeutic purpose through intermittent and chronic stimulation of vagus nerve afferent fibers, which has a remarkable effect on functional diseases of the central nervous system, and has been approved by FDA for intractable epilepsy, depression and migraine treatments. Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation(taVNS) is a new type of non-invasive nerve regulation therapy based on traditional VNS and vagus nerve anatomy, and has a wide range of central regulation; taVNS can improve the cognitive state by regulating functions of cognition-related cerebral cortex and nerve nuclei, regulating inflammatory response, promoting neurotransmitter transmission, and so on, which has a broad application prospect in cognition-related diseases. This paper mainly summarizes the recent advance in central mechanism of taVNS in improving cognitive function.